


Absolute Zero

by pixymisa, selecasharp



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Season/Series 09, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Bottom Dean, Bottom Dean Winchester/Top Sam Winchester, Bottom Sam, Canonical Character Death, Charlie finds out, Cockblocking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed Winchesters, Epic, Epic Love, First Kiss, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Serious Injuries, Sexual Tension, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, Top Dean, Top Dean Winchester/Bottom Sam Winchester, Top Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-04 22:53:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 75,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4156011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixymisa/pseuds/pixymisa, https://archiveofourown.org/users/selecasharp/pseuds/selecasharp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heaven is closed, and after Sam's sacrifice, so is Hell. Crowley is missing, Abaddon is raising Hell on Earth, and Sam and Dean are lost, trapped in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, where Sam can’t wake up but also can’t die, and nothing Dean does can help. To find them, Castiel will do whatever it takes, including agreeing to become the vessel to the only angel willing to answer. And that's only the beginning...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

> First, thanks to our lovely, awesome, amazing artist, [Merakieros](http://merakieros.tumblr.com). You're the best, and your art is just gorgeous. Love you, sweetie! C: The rest of Merakieros's amazing art can be found [here](http://merakieross.livejournal.com/4566.html)!
> 
> Spoilers through season 9 (the story diverges sometime during canon's 9x01, but some elements from later s9 show up in different ways)

  


**PROLOGUE  
for whom the bell tolls**

  
_it's better just to settle and face the facts_

It’s almost over.

Even though Sam knows what to expect, it’s still a shock when he opens the door to the cabin and sees the figure standing by the stone fireplace. He knows it’s all in his head — the cabin, the chairs, even the flames throwing fingers of light across the wooden floor — but he also knows that there’s nothing more real than the man he’s about to face.

“Hello, Sam,” Death says, turning. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“I know you have,” Sam replies, wary. He may have been expecting this, even begun to welcome it, but he’s seen too much, been through too much, to just throw himself headlong into anything. He knows he’s going to die, but he doesn’t know why Death himself has come for him, not yet.

Sam closes the door behind him and edges into the small room, wishing for a brief moment that Dean could have stayed with him. But that wasn’t Dean, not really; this is Sam’s dream, Sam’s head, and Sam has to do this alone.

“Won’t you sit down?” Death asks, pleasant. His cane flicks out from his side, gesturing at the two armchairs placed by the fireside. Other than that, he doesn’t move. His eyes stay fixed on Sam’s, unfathomable, and again Sam wants Dean here with him. The real Dean, not the one his mind conjured.

But he’s ready for this.

“All right,” Sam allows. He crosses the room in one step, even though it looked farther than that, and carefully lowers himself into one of the chairs. It feels real, even though he knows it isn’t; the cushions sigh as his weight settles onto them, and the leather feels slick and cool under his fingertips. When he looks up, Death is already seated in the chair opposite him, the firelight throwing shadows across the sharp planes of his face. “Why are you here?” Sam demands, not wanting to drag this out any longer than necessary. “Why you, personally?”

The ghost of a smile touches Death’s lips. A cold chill runs down Sam’s spine, or he imagines it does. He wonders what that look means, if Death knows something about what’s happening that he doesn’t. He wonders if something worse than mere death could be awaiting him.

“I’m surprised you asked,” Death replies, never taking that gaze of his from Sam. It’s uncomfortable at best, being scrutinized that closely by Death; he feels stripped, laid bare, and Death has done nothing but look at him. “I must admit, when I heard it was you…” The smile widens, just a touch. “Well, I had to come myself.”

Sam shakes his head, unable to keep his disquiet from showing. Death has never looked this pleased before. No, not pleased, he thinks, studying the man’s visage. Death waits patiently, watching him without blinking, his lips curving a little more with each passing moment. Amused, Sam decides. He looks amused.

“I bet you get off on this,” Sam says out loud.

“Perhaps,” Death admits. He keeps talking, saying something about how it’s an honor to be collecting Sam, claiming that he doesn’t pass judgment in moments like these. It’s all words though, empty chatter, when soon there won’t be anything at all.

Sam glances at the closed door to the cabin, and for just a moment, lets himself imagine Dean opening it, imagines hugging his brother close. He could fight this still, he thinks. He could do what the Dean he’d dreamed earlier said: fight death to the end, try to live, for Dean if not for himself. But there’s no guarantee it would work, and besides, look where fighting death has gotten them before. He wants to stay with Dean, yes, but he also wants to stop fighting. He wants to stop running, to stop fighting battles that will never end, to stop knowing that he’s responsible for so much more pain than he’s prevented.

He just wishes he could have explained everything to the real Dean, first.

It’s silent now, and Sam realizes that Death has finished speaking and is just watching him. “I need to know one thing first,” Sam says, abrupt.

Death nods, expectant.

Sam takes a deep breath. “If I go with you,” he says, slowly, “can you promise that this time it will be final? That if I'm dead, I stay dead. Nobody can reverse it, nobody can deal it away—” He thinks of Dean, and his heart clenches. But it’s for the best; he knows that much for sure. He takes another deep breath, “—and nobody else can get hurt because of me.”

Death nods again, and this time it’s something like understanding, or even compassion, that Sam can see in his eyes. “I can promise that.”

Sam lets out his breath in a rush. It’s over, then, he realizes.

It’s finally over.

A mixture of emotions sweeps over him, and he slumps back in the chair and closes his eyes. Dean, he thinks, regret piercing him as he imagines the look on his brother’s face when Sam never wakes up. He’d promised to try to live for his brother, but the two of them should have learned by now that, in the end, death cannot be cheated. He puts his hands to his face, feeling his eyes burn and his throat go tight with unshed tears. But relief is there too, just as strong: the knowledge that he’s done, that this is it, that he can finally rest.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” he whispers to his palms.

“It's time, Sam,” Death’s voice breaks in, and Sam looks up to see Death rise, his form unfolding more than standing. “Shall we?” The smile is back, and his eyes are almost kind, now. He extends a hand, his long fingers stretching toward him. A ring glitters on one of them, the square white stone flickering with shifting patterns of orange in the firelight. The ring, Sam realizes.

Sam gets to his own feet. “When you see him,” he says softly, his eyes on that ring, the same one that’s both taken him away from Dean once before and helped bring him back, “tell him I’m sorry.” He can’t bring himself to say his brother’s name, but he knows Death will understand.

“I shall,” Death says, and takes his hand.

Or tries to.

Though the fingers close around Sam’s, though he sees them lace through his, he doesn’t feel them, not the way he’s felt the chair or the floorboards or even the soft heat of the fire. Sam tries too then, using both hands, grasping for Death’s fingers, even trying to grab hold of the cane in his other hand, and failing every time. “What—?” he pants, the first stirrings of real fear flaring to life in his chest.

_...something worse than mere death..._

“I cannot take you,” Death says, and though his voice stays quiet, there’s an undercurrent of such terrible wrath that Sam recoils, stumbling back a few steps. Death looms before him, his face a mask, his cane rapping at the floor with sharp hard strikes. The wood splinters, creaking underfoot, and Sam backs up until his knees hit the chair. He sits down hard, and, incredibly, pain spikes through him, lancing through his chest with such sudden fury that he doubles over, gasping.

“Why?” he manages to ask.

Death looks at him, and there’s nothing kind or even human about the look in his eyes now. “I have been—” he pauses, apparently choosing his next word with care, “—fettered.” An irritated smile splits his face. “It seems you escape me once again, Sam Winchester.”

Sam huddles in the chair, trying to breathe through the pain. It’s intense, nearly consuming, but it isn’t the pain that scares him now. “Did…” he pants.

“Your brother cannot bind me,” Death answers before he can finish. “Don’t be absurd, my boy. You’ll have to take it up with… another.” He turns, his coat swirling, the black momentarily blocking Sam’s sight of the fire. “Until next time, Sam.”

“Wait!” Sam cries. He makes himself sit up, makes himself ignore the pain now pounding through his entire body. “But if I can’t die, why haven’t I woken up?”

But Death has vanished, and Sam is alone.

Sam is alone.

The pain overwhelms him, and he falls to the floor, his head striking the cracked wood, his skin seeming to split over his heart. He screams with agony and curls up, hoping he’ll wake up, hoping that someone, anyone, even if they’re just his imagination, will come help him. But no one comes, and no one comes, and he has to face the truth. He can’t die, but he can’t go back either.

“Dean,” he sobs, “ _Dean_.”

It’s not over yet.


	2. CHAPTER ONE

  
**PART ONE  
the house of gold and bones**

 

  
_and I will let you down as I hold you in_

Sam's pale under the hospital lights, washed out by the fluorescent glow. He seems shrunken in the bed, the equipment taped to his face to keep him breathing looming over him, making him seem so small in comparison. He looks like Dean’s kid brother again, when Sam was little and cute and needed his big brother to protect him.

Dean sits and stares at him, watches the slow rise and fall of his chest, hating every minute that the machine is breathing for him.

It’s been three days since the angels fell. Three days since Sam collapsed after the Trials. Three days since Dean stuffed his brother in the back seat of the Impala and broke every traffic law there is to get him into a hospital. He was cold then, but he’s colder now, like the Trials took every ounce of heat from him.

“You have to think about what’s best for him,” the nurse says to Dean. The woman is a damned saint, to put up with Dean the way he is right now. She’s the one who showed him to the hospital's chapel, who promised to watch over his brother until he got back, while Dean prayed harder than he ever had before. Not that it did a damned thing.

Sam’s the one who believed more in that shit, anyway.

So he sits and he waits and he watches the machine breathe for Sam. He listens for the moments, here and there, that Sam fights against it. Every time it happens, Dean hopes that this is it, that this is the moment where he opens his eyes and starts getting better. But then Sam goes still again, and Dean starts to wonder if this is it, if this is the moment when Sam slips away from him for good.

Cas hasn’t answered. Not a single angel has answered.

“He keeps fighting the ventilator,” the nurse tells Dean. “I think it’s causing him pain.”

But Sam’s strong. Sam’s never been one to shy away from pain. He’s carried his burdens quietly. He suffered through unimaginable torture in Hell, he fought his way through the Trials to the very end. He can hold on a little longer. And if he can hold on long enough, he’ll get better. 

Won’t he?

“You need to think about what he would want,” the nurse says.

And what would Sam want? He wanted to die, at the end of the Trials. He wanted his life to have meant something. But Dean convinced him not to finish. Dean convinced him to live, despite the pain and suffering.

“Did the two of you ever talk about arrangements?” the nurse asks.

The only arrangements they ever made were promises to each other, when the other one had a death sentence coming due. Promises made under shitty circumstances and broken as soon as it became convenient. He shakes his head at the nurse without lifting his eyes from Sam’s body. If Sam doesn’t make it, the only funeral will be a hunter’s pyre. It won’t be much, but it’s all the ceremony they’ve needed for years. It’s all they’ve ever really known.

Dean can barely let himself think about it. He hasn’t been able to let Sam go before — what makes this time any different?

Sam thrashes in the bed again, his heart rate jumping up, the machines surrounding him alarming in distress. He’s weaker, Dean thinks, and the episode only lasts a few moments until Sam stills in the bed again. He’s coated in sweat just from that short burst of exertion. Dean reaches out and mops up Sam’s face.

“He’s suffering,” the nurse tells Dean.

Dean presses a kiss to Sam’s damp forehead, strokes his limp, greasy hair back from his eyes. Sam’s as still as a corpse and so very cold under his hands.

“Do it,” he whispers.

They shut down the ventilator, but the machine tracking Sam’s vital signs stays on. The slow beep marking Sam’s heartbeat plummets to almost nothing at all. Sam’s chest stops rising for almost a full minute at a time, only to start up and then slow to almost nothing again. Sam’s breathing on his own, which is technically an improvement, but it’s not enough to give Dean hope. He watches Sam all through the night, standing vigil by his side like he’s done every day that his brother’s been in that damned hospital, watching and waiting for something to change.

The doctor comes in with the nurse as the sun comes up, and she’s a woman with a kind face and a clipboard in her hand. She watches Sam for a while, then asks, “How long have you been waiting?”

Dean shrugs. “He’s still breathing,” he says, and it wrecks him to think that he’s trying to stop it. He swallows the lump in his throat and asks her, “Is this normal?”

“No,” she says, almost sounding surprised by it. “It’s a pity, though.”

He’s up on his feet as soon as he realizes, but she already has an angel sword in her hand. He’s slow to get his out, and she just knocks it out of the way, sending him back against the wall with an effortless shove. He scrambles up again, but he’s tired and stiff and slow, and she slams the blade down into Sam’s chest, blood splattering over her face and coat, her face bright and triumphant. Sam arches up off the bed, body pulled up like a bow, screaming.

“Sammy!” Dean yells. He scrambles for his own blade, but she’s there when he gets his hand on it, covered in Sammy’s blood, holding the sword she used to kill him. She swings down and he knocks the blow to the side, she swings from the side and he smacks it down. He’s holding his own, but barely, and it’s clear that she’s not interested in killing him, not yet.

“You’re just delaying the inevitable,” she snarls. “Like you’ve done countless times since the beginning of time. All you humans ever do is delay.”

“Fuck you,” Dean grits out. He lunges forward to get her off balance, brings his blade up from below, slices her across the gut. It’s not enough to kill her, no, but maybe it’ll slow her down a bit. She brings the butt of her sword up, clips Dean in the face, knocking him back against the far wall.

“Why don’t we just skip to the end,” she snaps. “You tell me where Castiel is, and I end your suffering.”

Dean spits blood. “I said _fuck you_ ,” he tells her, and lunges forward again. This time he gets lucky. She’s slower to react than before, and when she brings up her sword to block him, he grabs her arm with his free hand and drives his own blade home. She drops in a blinding flash of light, leaving spots of glare dancing in his eyes.

He staggers back against the wall and just breathes, closing his eyes to block out the beeping of the vitals machine.

Wait.

Dean scrambles over to Sam’s side. Impossibly, he’s still breathing. He’s been stabbed through the chest and he’s still breathing. It’s faster than before, now, and the center of it has moved down into Sam’s stomach. Fluttering.

He hears a noise, something between a gasp and a cry, and he remembers — he and Sam and that angel were not alone. The nurse, his saint from before, stands there white-faced, her eyes wide with horror at the attack and the blood and the dead meatsuit cooling on the floor. She’s seen everything, but he can’t worry about that now.

“Sammy’s still alive,” Dean bleats. “How is he still alive?”

She comes up next to him, ghosts her hands over the hole in Sam’s chest. “I don’t know,” she replies. Her voice is steady now, calm, like Sam has given her something to focus on other than the attack. “We can get him cleaned up, maybe give him morphine to ease the pain, and let him go—”

“No,” Dean tells her. He feels scraped raw, on jagged edges. He thinks about that prayer in the chapel, almost a week ago, and he curses himself. “It’s not safe here, for him or for me.” He jerks his head towards the dead doctor on the floor. “They’re coming for us. Help me?”

She can’t seem to look at him at first. He watches her eyes dart from Sam to the dead doctor and then to the blackened outline of wings on the floor. She meets his eyes and their gazes lock for a moment, and then she nods.

Together, they bandage the wound on Sam’s chest, get Sam into a wheelchair, and tuck Sam into the back of the Impala. Sam’s as still as a corpse the entire time, his head lolling limply. Dean wraps him tight in the hospital blankets, thanks the nurse, and drives.

Like he did on the ventilator, from time to time Sam thrashes around, groaning and gasping, only to go so still that Dean fears he’s finally died. Dean can’t bring himself to look to see if he’s still alive, can’t do anything but mash the gas pedal and try not to think.

It was bad in the hospital, not knowing whether Sam was going to live or die.

This is worse. This is much worse.

*

_...sometimes Sam loses all track of time. The sky never changes; night never falls; the woods never end, no matter how far or how wide he searches. He has no real idea how long ago it was that he met Death in the cabin, whether it’s been hours or days or even weeks since he crawled over the warped floorboards and stumbled back down the steps. He hasn’t seen it, or anyone, or anything other than trees and rocks and plants and dirt, since he left._

_Everything hurts now, everything, with a pain that even after his years of torture he can’t ignore. Every tree grabs for him, every thorn seems to pierce him, every rock manages to trip him. But he can’t stop moving. He can’t stop looking. No matter how bad the pain gets, no matter how much blood and skin and tears he leaves behind, he has to keep going, until he finds the way out._

_Dean’s waiting for him._

***

Dean loses track of the miles and the hours and anything that isn’t the road in front of him or the sounds coming from the back seat of the Impala. Even the crack in the windshield, which happened during one of Sam’s attacks when Dean took his eyes off the road to make sure Sam wasn’t choking, even that can be ignored for now. He doesn’t know exactly where they are, but between the flat land and the stretches of cornfields, Dean guesses Iowa. 

The gas light comes on so early in the morning it’s practically still night, and Dean has no idea where to find a gas station, so he pulls to the side of the narrow dirt road and looks around. The engine sputters for a moment, and then dies. 

“Well, Sammy,” he says out loud, “this sucks.”

Sam’s been lying still in the back seat for a while, but his breathing is loud and harsh and wet. Dean tries not to think about it, and instead looks around for somewhere for them to lay low for a while. All that Dean can see for miles is corn, about as tall as his boots, but after several minutes, he makes out a white building in the distance.

“Sammy, I think I found us a place to crash for the night.”

Sam’s still in his nest of blankets, his breathing even, if still wet-sounding. Dean takes that as a good sign and follows the road to the building on foot. It’s a house, whitewashed with a sagging green roof. Someone had lived there once, and someone had planted the corn growing everywhere, but as Dean pulls up close, there’s no sign of anyone inside. Dishes are stacked neatly in the kitchen, the furniture’s dusty but intact. At some point someone had loved the house.

But it’s empty now. Dean can always tell the difference. 

He drags one of the beds, complete with sheets and sagging mattress, down the stairs and sets it in the front room next to the kitchen. It isn’t ideal, but that could serve as a sick room for Sam. He tests the kitchen for water and electricity. There’s a crackle and hum in the walls when he flips the light switch, but none of the lights actually comes on. The tap runs, but the water is a murky gray color. The only thing that gives Dean the least amount of relief is that the stove is old enough to have a wood-burning side.

They’ve lived in worse, honestly, squatted in filth and squalor before. This is doable.

He pulls Sam out of the back seat, carefully slings his brother over his shoulder, and hauls him up to the house. Once they’re inside, once Sam is laid out on the bed, Dean can finally, finally peel the blankets and the soaked bandage aside and get a good look at the wound.

It’s stopped bleeding, for the most part, but it still looks fucking bad. Hospital-bad. Sammy-should-be-dead-bad. But Sam continues to breathe in and out, and so Dean decides to count that as a win. For now. He pulls out the first-aid kit from the car and covers the hole in Sam’s chest again. Wound covered up, the bloodied blankets peeled away, Sam looks almost exactly like he’s sleeping.

Dean sits for a while and watches him, rubs at the stubble on his face and wonders what to do next. This reminds him of when Lucifer was topside, when the angels were refusing to let either of them die so they could throw the world’s worst apocalypse party.

He wonders what’s going to happen next, now that the angels have fallen.

Sam starts thrashing in the bed, fighting hard, crying out in pain. The white bandage turns wet and red with blood as he struggles. Dean gets up from his chair and paces the room, unable to simply sit and watch and wait for Sam to go quiet again. The episode lasts longer this time, or at least it feels like it lasts longer. Without the road or hospital staff to distract him, all Dean can do is wait until it’s over.

When Sam finally, finally grows still in the bed again, Dean flees the house entirely.

He tells himself it’s to take stock of their surroundings, to see what in the way of food and other supplies he can find, but that’s not the truth. Not the whole truth, at least. But he throws himself into the task anyway. He finds chickens running free in the yard, and a lone cow wandering through the cornfield. He finds a stack of firewood leaning against a shed. He also finds a set of storm doors which lead down into a dirt-floor root cellar. There he finds row after row of jars filled with canned food, packed tight on wooden shelves cut right into the wall. Jackpot, he thinks. He takes a few jars and climbs back up into the bright light outside.

He takes the jars inside, sets them on the kitchen table, wipes his hands on his jeans and goes back to check on Sam again. He thinks Sam might have had another episode while he was outside, but other than the tangled blankets being thrown back and a fresh sheen of sweat on Sam’s face, there’s no change.

He needs to get Sam cleaned up, but that’s easier said than done. It takes him a while to get the wood-burning stove warmed up, to bring a fire down to a bed of red coals. He then gets a pot of the murky tap-water and starts heating it up. While he waits, he peels Sam out of his clothes, and then rummages through some closets until he finds enough rags to get the job done.

When the water’s boiled long enough, he separates the pot into two bowls, one to wash and one to rinse, and then sets them aside to cool down. He used to do this when Sammy was really young, when Dad left them in really shitty places for too long or was too drunk to care.

But Dean doesn’t let himself think about it. He has a job, same as he’s always had: take care of Sammy.

He throws some more kindling into the stove, and starts boiling another pot of water. That murky shit doesn’t look too good to drink, and at some point, the both of them are going to need it.

Dean doesn’t think about his phone until he’s done with Sam. The pile of dirty clothes smells like blood and dirt and sweat and piss, so Dean piles them out onto the back porch to deal with later. He gets Sam dressed again, just a tee-shirt and some boxers, and throws a blanket over him to keep him warm.

As he wipes his hands down on his pants, Dean finds the phone in his pocket. Cursing, he pulls it out, scanning for service. He could really use Cas about now. Some angel mojo would go a long way to making Dean feel better. And if Cas could fix Sam, that would be even better.

No signal.

He walks all the way around the house, both inside and out, hoping for something. Even a single bar would be good.

No signal.

He curses and goes back inside, takes the water off the heat and sets it aside. Then he opens up one of the jars he found in the root cellar and tests it out. From the color, he thought it might be some sort of peach mixture, but instead it’s a sweet squash mash. It’s better than the MREs in the car, so Dean polishes off half of it before he thinks about Sam again.

As if on cue, Sam starts thrashing in the bed again, like he’s having a seizure. He kicks, flails, and screams, like he’s fighting for his life.

For all Dean knows, he just might be.

Dean sits on the bed next to him, strokes the crumpled line of his brow, and waits for Sam to go quiet and still. It seems to take forever this time, and all he wants to do is hold Sam tight and close long enough for this to pass. When it finally does, Sam’s flushed and sweating and gasping raggedly for air.

“I got you, Sammy,” Dean whispers. “Hold on just a little longer.”

*

_...sometimes Sam wonders if he ever got out. Sometimes he thinks that he’s still there, that this endless forest is some trick of Lucifer’s to fuck with him, that this is still the cage. But the longer he wanders, the longer he goes without seeing anything other than trees and dirt and vines and thorns, the more he realizes that it can’t be. There, in the cage, he could always feel them nearby, Lucifer and Michael. He was never alone._

_There's no one, here. There’s no one but him, nothing but the forest, and Sam doesn’t know if that’s better or worse._

***

It’s the third day, and Dean’s collecting eggs when his phone buzzes. He nearly drops the eggs in his hurry to get it out of his pocket, chickens flapping and kicking around him in a fuss. He’s hoping it’s a message from Cas or Kevin or Charlie or someone.

— _8 missed calls_ —

He has service. Dean curses and dials Cas, and is rewarded with an honest to god ring on the other end of the line.

“Dean,” Cas answers. He sounds like Dean feels, ragged and worn out and very tired. “Where are you?”

“Iowa, I think. We ran out of gas.” He takes a deep breath to steady himself. “Cas, I need your help, man. Sammy’s... it’s bad. Real bad.”

Cas hesitates on the other end of the line, and before he even starts speaking Dean knows that there’s got to be some bad news coming. “Dean, Metatron cut out my grace. I’m human now.”

“Christ,” Dean mutters, and wipes at his face with the back of his hand. At least Cas is still breathing. At least Cas is still awake and aware and able to talk and shit. But he doesn’t know what the hell they’re going to do now, if Cas can’t find them. “I’m sorry. You’ve also got a bunch of pissed-off angels on your tail. We were in the hospital, and they attacked us looking for you.”

“I know,” Cas replies. “I’ve already met with a few of them. It was unfortunate. Dean, where exactly are you? It may take me some time to find you, but—” 

“I don’t fucking know, that’s the problem. We’re crashing in the middle of nowhere, here. It’s a white house, green roof, and there’s a lot of fucking corn. I found a barn nearby, faded black letters. And did I mention there’s a lot of corn?”

The phone beeps in his hand and Dean looks down at it.

No service.

“Dammit,” he whispers.

There’s nothing else to do but gather the eggs back up and head up to the house. He can hear Sam before he gets in the door, thrashing long and hard in the bed. Dean sets the eggs down in the sink and moves to the bed, catching Sam by the wrist and shoving him over onto his side. Sam makes a deep wheezing cough in his chest, wet and ugly, but Dean just climbs into the bed behind him, wraps his arms around Sam and holds him down. He whispers in Sam’s hair, stupid shit about when they were kids, about when it was just the two of them together in one of Dad’s rat holes, making the best of a bad situation.

Like Dean is now.

Sam doesn’t stop fighting, but as long as Dean’s talking, he doesn’t seem to fight as hard. Most of the time, anyway. Dean’s left with bruises on his face, and a few cuts here and there, but when Sam stills and his breathing evens out, it’s all good, if only for a little bit.

They’re coming faster and lasting longer, Dean thinks. The only good news in all this mess is that Sam’s stab wound is healing up. Dean still doesn’t want to think too hard about it, about the idea that Sam survived an angel blade to the chest, so he makes himself think about food instead. The eggs are fresh and warm, and they scramble up neatly. He fills his belly and then turns back to Sam.

It’s been days with no improvement. They’ve gone for stretches without food before, but not like this. Sam’s losing weight, and he needs to get something down. He’s quiet for now, so Dean mashes the eggs up and adds some hot water and makes a thin soup out of it. Then, he spoons it into Sam’s mouth, bit by bit by bit. Sam coughs around it, but he swallows, and Dean counts it as another victory. It’s not much, not enough to keep Sam going forever, but it’s better than nothing.

He mops up Sam’s face, brushes his hair back from his forehead, and watches him breathe for a while. He can only give himself a few minutes, though. There’s work to be done, and Dean’s the only one who can do it. “Any time you want to wake up and help,” he tells Sam, and presses his lips to the top of Sam’s head in a kiss.

The woodpile for the stove is growing short. The nights are cool, and the only source of heat for the two of them is that stove. So Dean spends time cutting wood until he’s too tired to think, cleans out the ashtray at the bottom of the stove, and starts a fresh fire for the night. He’s sweating and filthy and exhausted by the end, but when he climbs into the bed next to Sam, he falls into a deep dreamless sleep.

In the morning, when he checks his phone, the battery’s dead.

*

_...sometimes Sam feels like he can’t breathe. Sometimes the forest around him goes blurry and he stumbles to a halt, coughing and coughing and coughing until he chokes, until he’s sure that he’s going to pass out, until he welcomes the thought of everything finally, mercifully ending. But he can’t pass out, not here, not yet. He can’t stop, because if he stops, then it will never end. He’ll never figure a way out. He’ll never stop hurting._

_And he’ll never see his brother again._

_And so he keeps going, his lungs burning, his stomach clenching, his parched throat cracked and bleeding. He keeps going, even when he can’t breathe, even when he can’t walk, even when he has to crawl. He keeps going, because knows the answer, now._

_Because the worst pain, the absolute worst, is being so utterly alone._

***

After almost two weeks of this, Dean breaks. 

It’s a few miles to the nearest crossroads that he can find, but Sam’s wet cough has gotten worse, and honestly, there’s only so much more that Dean can take. Sam rattles and whistles and gurgles all the time, and nothing Dean can do eases it. The Impala’s totally dry, her tank empty and her battery drained, and so he covers her broken windshield with a piece of cardboard for protection and hoofs it down the road, supplies for the summoning tucked under his arm.

The corn has shot up over a foot, a deep glossy green under a wide blue sky. It’s a nice day, the sort of day that makes Dean think of the times he and Sam have been together under an open sky, drinking beer and teasing the shit out of each other. Dean’s stomach clenches at what Sam’s reaction will be when he finds out about this stupid plan, but Dean’s at the end of his rope.

He needs Sam to get better.

Oh, the chest wound is almost gone, only an angry red mark left from the attack, but that’s not really the point. Dean can get Sam to drink a little, eat a little if it’s liquid enough, but he can’t get Sam to wake up. He’s not getting enough, food or drink or even fucking air, and there’s only so long Sam can survive like this.The episodes have been getting worse, coming more often and lasting a lot longer than they did even a few days earlier. Cas can’t come for them, not without his angel mojo, and as far as Dean knows no one else has a clue where the hell they are. Something has to give, and at this point, it’s Dean. Sam can be pissed all he damn well likes. So long as he’s awake and aware again, Dean doesn’t give much of a shit about the rest.

He buries the tin with the summoning supplies, turns himself around in a slow circle. Fucking crossroads demons always like to come up on him from behind, but the way things have been going, Dean’s not so sure he’s going to get a friendly greeting.

“Dean Winchester.”

He turns, sees a woman standing there standing tall and proud. Her eyes flash red, but she doesn’t smile at him, like the other crossroads demons have before. In fact, she looks kind of pissed.

“I’m here to make a deal,” he says, and puts his hands up in surrender.

“‘Make a deal’,” she repeats, tone mocking. “Who the hell do you think you are? There are no more deals. Your brother made damned sure of that.”

So he did it. Sam closed the gates of Hell. It’s the first really good news in a long time, but at the same time, it’s also the worst thing in the world. 

No deal, no saving Sam.

“So now what?” Dean asks. “You’re what, stuck here? Waiting for extinction?”

She throws her head back and laughs. “Cute, very cute. Like Hell is the only place that can make more demons. I promise you, Hell’s coming to Earth. Abaddon is back and she’s pissed, and you’re dead. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

She swipes her hands through the air, sending him flying. He lands in the middle of the road on his ass, but before he can get to his feet, she’s on top of him, hands wrapped around his throat, squeezing just hard enough to make breathing a serious issue. He’s been worn down, yes, but he’ll be damned if a fucking crossroads demon is the thing that takes him down. As she picks him up off the ground, holding him up in the air like every other demon ever, he pulls the demon knife from his jacket and slides it up between her ribs.

She goes stiff and drops him, and falls forward into a heap.

“That’s one,” he rasps out.

He cleans the blood off the knife on her shirt and hides her body in the cornfield. Then he starts the long walk back to the house. By the time he gets back, it’s been hours, and Sam is thrashing on the floor next to the bed, the sheets tangled around him. He’s facedown on the floorboards, a pool of blood spreading out from under his hair, coughing so hard it sounds like he’s tearing apart.

Dean jumps on him and hauls him upright, swearing. His face is blue, there’s pink foam around his mouth, and his nose is bleeding too, from the fall or from Sam’s fit, he doesn’t know. He pounds on Sam’s back, muttering incoherent pleas under his breath. Dark blood dribbles out of his mouth as Sam coughs weakly, but the color returns to his face and his breathing evens out again. It won’t last long, it never lasts long anymore, but it’s good enough for now. Dean heaves him back onto the mattress and falls onto it with him, holds Sam’s limp form tight, strokes his hair.

“I’m sorry, Sammy,” he whispers. “I tried.”

*

_...sometimes Sam can almost hear Dean’s voice. Sometimes he’s sure that Dean’s nearby, that as soon as he rounds the next tree or reaches the top of the next hill, he’ll see him. He runs faster then, ignoring the pain, holding himself together, letting himself hope as he tries to reach his brother before he loses him again._

_But Dean is never there, and Sam breaks every time._

***

Dean takes his time. He starts with Sam’s hair and scruffy beard, shaves him with a straight razor he found in the bathroom, taking breaks when Sam starts to convulse again. With the beard gone, Dean can see just how much weight Sam has lost in the weeks since the angels fell. Dean shakes his head, pushing those thoughts aside, and concentrates on the work. Sam’s hair is limp and lank, and it takes two really good washes to get it all clean. There’s no conditioner, so it’s not easy to comb his hair out, but Dean manages.

He then works his way down Sam’s body, washing his neck and chest, his arms and hands. He rolls him over to the side to get his back and ass, then lays him flat again to move down to his legs and feet. He spends his time whittling down Sam’s nails with a knife, pats him dry, and then gets out the last set of relatively clean sheets. Laundry hasn’t been easy to do in the house, not with Sam in this state, but Dean’s sort of kept up. He changes the sheets under Sam, rolling him back and forth until he gets it all straight and neat.

Then he dresses Sam. It takes a while, but Dean isn’t exactly in a hurry. He gets out jeans and that weird flowery shirt that Sam likes, smoothes the wrinkles out and straightens the seams. Sam would like it, he decides, taking a step back from it all to admire his work.

He takes his Taurus out and lays it on the table, takes it all apart and cleans it, like he cleaned Sam. He doesn’t have a lot of time to do this, but he’s fast and efficient. When he’s done, he leaves it there on the table, goes back to the bed and Sam, and waits for his brother to go still in the bed again.

Then he picks up the pillow and presses it down over Sam’s face.

Sam starts thrashing almost immediately, fighting harder than Dean’s seen him fight before, swinging and kicking aimlessly, mindlessly, a purely physical response. He pushes down harder, cursing himself, cursing the angels and demons for making this his only hope. It lasts longer than Dean thinks it should, or maybe it just feels like forever before Sam goes completely, utterly still.

He holds the pillow there a little bit longer, just to make sure.

When he pulls the pillow back, Sam’s hair is wild and messy and his mouth is smudged with blood. Dean cleans the blood away, smooths Sam’s hair down until it looks just right. Then he goes up to the table and gets his gun.

He hasn’t let himself think much about this part. He wonders what the best way to go is, whether he should put the gun to his temple or under his chin or what. But looking down at the gun, Dean wonders if eating it isn’t the best option. Less of a chance of him flinching away at the last minute, zero chance of him surviving. He puts the gun in his mouth, flicks off the safety, and gently starts to squeeze the trigger.

In the bed, Sam takes a deep, gasping breath.

It’s the best sound he’s ever heard. It’s also the worst.

Dean releases the trigger, flicks the safety back on, and sets his gun down. He walks over to the bed and climbs in it next to Sam, lays his head on Sam’s chest and listens to him breathe and breathe and breathe.


	3. CHAPTER TWO

  
  
_the one thing that I can't stand is when the minutes fight the second hand_  


Two weeks. Two weeks since this whole bunker shut down around him. Two weeks since he’s been cut off from the world, unable to call anyone, either on the ground lines or on his cell. Not even the TV works.

Two whole freaking weeks.

Kevin paces the library, glaring at the piles of books on the tables. He’s been reading through bits and pieces of them for the last several days, trying to find more about the tablets, wondering if there’s something else in any of the seemingly endless volumes about the Trials or about the angel tablet, which he still can barely make any sense of. Wondering just what happened with Sam and Dean and that asshole Crowley, if the Trials are over, if Hell is closed once and for all. Wondering what happened to Castiel, to all of them.

Wondering how much longer he can last trapped in here without any way to figure out just what the hell is going on.

“It could be worse,” he says out loud. He’s been saying a lot of things out loud, even more than usual. And it could be, he knows that. At least here he still has running water and electricity and food, though if he’s getting close to the end of the groceries Sam and Dean had stocked up. There’s other food, of course, an entire supply room full of dehydrated rations from, at the absolute latest, the forties. He’s hoping to get out of here before he has to dip into that.

He stalks back into the room with the map table, which is still lit up, though it’s muted now, the colors spread over the world map dimmer and fewer. His stuff is still in this room, forgotten on the floor, but Kevin hasn’t bothered moving it to the room he’s been sleeping in. He doesn’t want to move in, doesn’t want to officially claim this place as home, even though it’s starting to look as if it’s going to be the last place he ever sees.

Kevin swears under his breath, then winces as he pictures his mother’s reaction to hearing him say those words. “Sorry, Mom,” he whispers. The reality of her death hits him again, just as sharp and raw as it was when he first found out that Crowley had killed her. He closes his eyes, breathing hard, his hands curling into fists at his side. He hopes it hurt, what Sam and Dean had to do to Crowley to complete the third Trial. He hopes it was fucking agony.

He pictures his mother’s face again, the look she’d give him if he told her that all he’d done to try to get out was attempt to call the Winchesters a few dozen times, yank on some doors without any success, and read a whole lot of books. She wouldn’t just pace around glaring at things, he thinks. She’d be figuring out a way out of this place, and she wouldn’t stop until she’d done it.

“Enough of this crap,” Kevin mutters. Screw this waiting around, stashed away somewhere safe once again while others take all the risks. He has to know what happened. He has to know if it worked, if Sam survived, if Dean’s still alive. And he’s not going to figure that out stuck in here.

He picks up the crossbow still perched on the edge of the table and checks to make sure it’s loaded, then grabs his unpacked bag and heads through the winding halls for the garage he'd discovered five days ago, where he knows he can find all kinds of tire irons and crowbars and things of that nature. He knows every inch of this damn place, now.

He’s getting out of here, no matter what it takes.

The idea of trying to force his way out through the garage, though, is laughable at best, and so Kevin finds himself back at the, for lack of a better term, front door. It’s the door he came in through, the one Dean gave him the key for, and it’s going to be the one he’s going out of.

The alarms have been silent for most of his time here, thankfully. But the moment Kevin puts the crowbar against the lock and pushes his weight onto it, they start up again, even louder and more earsplitting than before. Startled, he jumps, the iron slipping from his grasp and hitting the floor with a resounding crash. Kevin swears again, clapping his hands over his ears. The lock doesn’t look like he’d even touched it, and now his head is ringing, throbbing in time with the scream of the alarms. Great. He just made it even worse.

Then, just as suddenly as they’d started, the alarms shut off.

The doorknob rattles, and Kevin practically leaps across the room, grabbing up the crossbow and spinning to aim it at the door in one movement. He doesn't even have time to appreciate that he actually pulled that off before the lock on the door disengages and it swings slowly open. He waits, tense, finger poised.

He’s expecting demons or monsters or angels or possibly even Dean or Sam to come through that door.

He’s not expecting Castiel, of all people, to walk in. If Castiel counts as a person.

“What are you doing here?” he demands, not lowering the crossbow. He doesn’t know what went down, true, but he has a pretty good idea that Castiel was involved somehow.

Castiel regards him with something like surprise. Slowly, he puts his hands up, palms out. He looks terrible, Kevin notices. His clothes are ripped and smeared with dirt, and his palms are scraped. Actually scraped, with dried blood and grit stuck to them. “Kevin,” Castiel rasps, his voice even huskier than usual. “Is Dean here? Have you heard from him?”

“I haven’t heard from anyone in two weeks, thanks to you, I’m pretty sure,” Kevin retorts. “What were those trials you were doing with Metatron? What the hell happened out there? And while we’re at it, why are you bleeding?”

Castiel’s face is drawn, pale under the dirt. “It’s Dean,” he replies, which is not answering any of his questions. “I have not been able to contact him for over a week. Sam is… Sam is not well, and Dean is lost. I must find them.”

Castiel looks so honestly worried that Kevin finally lowers the crossbow. “So you’ve heard from them?” Hope flares to life in his chest. Over a week, Castiel had said. So Dean and Sam were alive at least a few days after the lockdown started. Maybe they still are.

Or maybe not. The story Castiel tells him isn’t good, not that any stories about Sam and Dean ever are. Sam, in a hospital, near death. Dean taking him on the run after an attack by angels, who apparently have all been cast out from Heaven, which actually explains a lot about the last two weeks. Dean only managing to call Castiel for a couple minutes before his cell service failed.

“I must find them,” Castiel says again.

“Why can’t you?” Kevin frowns. “I mean, you can find them with your angel mojo, right? So why—”

“I am not an angel any longer, Kevin,” Castiel interrupts, his blue eyes grave. Kevin blinks, his gaze landing on Castiel’s bloodied hands. Well, that makes sense now, at least. “My grace is gone.”

There are so many questions Kevin wants to ask, he doesn’t even know where to start. No, he amends. He knows exactly where to start. “Tell me everything you know about where Dean was when he called you,” he says.

While Castiel talks, relating a depressingly short amount of information, Kevin unloads the crossbow, picks up the crowbar from its abandoned position on the floor, and stuffs them both into his bag. The angel tablet is still on one of the library tables, and he puts that in too, wrapping it in a couple shirts and stuffing it to the very bottom of the bag. His cell is still in his pocket, and to his surprise, it’s showing service bars again. Of course, the alarms stopped too, when Castiel opened the door; the lockdown must have ended when the bunker was opened from the outside.

He’s free.

“All I know for certain,” Castiel concludes, “is that after the hospital, Dean drove for several hours, and stopped at a white house with a green roof. And there was a lot of corn. Dean was very clear about that.”

Kevin snorts. “Oh yeah, that narrows it down.” He hefts the bag onto his shoulder. “How did you get here?”

“I borrowed a car,” Castiel replies, watching him intently, a faint look of confusion twisting his brow. “What are you doing?”

“I’m helping you find them,” Kevin says, and braces himself for the inevitable argument.

Castiel merely nods. “Good. Let’s go.”

Kevin’s sure he hasn’t heard correctly. “And by ‘let’s go,’ you really mean, ‘sit tight and wait here where it’s safe,’ right?”

“Aren’t you coming?” Castiel asks, his brow furrowing even more.

Okay, so maybe Castiel isn’t so bad. “Damn right I’m coming,” Kevin declares. He shoves his way past Castiel and out through the door, breathing in deep once he steps out into the sunshine. The air smells sweet out here, and he closes his eyes, letting the soft breeze play over his face. Some of the tension he’s built up over the last couple weeks loosens, and for the first time in a very, very long time, Kevin smiles.

“Where do we start?” Castiel asks from behind him.

Kevin opens his eyes again and looks out at the world. He can see the car Castiel must have ‘borrowed,’ a beat-up white sedan covered with mud, parked crookedly on the street. He can see the trees, and the sky, and the road leading away from his prison. He could go down it, he thinks, leave this place forever, leave the pain and the misery and the loss of the last couple years behind. His mother’s gone, Castiel can’t stop him, and Sam and Dean aren’t here. He can do whatever he wants, now.

And he’s going to find them.

“Where they did,” Kevin replies.

They take the car Castiel came in, if only because Kevin doesn’t want to leave it near the bunker. Much as he hates the place, he doesn’t want to compromise it either, not if there’s a chance that Sam and Dean might need it again. Castiel doesn’t argue when Kevin takes the wheel, either, just gets in beside him and stares gravely out through the windshield, his battered fingers tapping impatiently on the dashboard. Kevin wraps his own fingers around the wheel and breathes in, then looks at Castiel. “While we’re driving there,” he says, pointedly, “you’re telling me _everything_.”

The drive to Sioux Falls doesn’t take nearly as long as Kevin had thought it would. It helps that Castiel does exactly as requested, telling him the whole sad story of how Metatron tricked him into closing Heaven and exiling all the angels to Earth. “If only I had not been so gullible,” Castiel finishes, anguish coloring his words. “It’s my fault, all of it, and if Sam dies—”

“Yeah, if you’d just waited for me to translate the angel tablet, this wouldn’t have happened,” Kevin can’t resist pointing out. The story of his life, he thinks.

Castiel bows his head. “I’m sorry, Kevin.”

Kevin shakes his head. “Don’t be sorry. Just help me.”

Barely six hours after they left, they reach the outskirts of the city. The sun is still up, but low in the sky, and Kevin slows the car as Castiel directs him through the narrow streets until they find the church. It’s clearly abandoned, just from the look from it. Kevin stops the car in a tangle of weeds and gets out, stretching his cramping back, never taking his eyes from the building. So this is where they did it, he thinks. This is where they took Crowley, where they tried to complete the Trials.

This is where it might have ended.

“I took Dean here myself, before,” Castiel says, leading the way to a door. It’s half-open, the room beyond it a rectangle of darkness framed by peeling white paint. Kevin lifts the crossbow, cocking it and training it on that rectangle as Castiel pushes the door in. It scrapes open with a low squeak, sending dust filtering through the air. But there’s no other sound, and nothing comes out or moves, and so when Castiel steps in, Kevin follows.

He doesn’t lower the crossbow, though.

There’s a chair, he sees right away, despite the dim interior. A single chair, in the middle of a devil’s trap and adorned with chains and shackles on the arms and legs. Open shackles.

“Crowley was held there,” Castiel says, confirming what Kevin already figured out. He frowns, his brow furrowing. “He is gone.”

“Obviously,” Kevin mutters, edging closer. He can see dark stains on the chair and on the floor around it, and hints of red shine on the edges of the shackles, even in the low light. But there’s no other trace of the demon, not that Kevin can see. Not a trail of stains to mark where he might have gone, or even drag marks in the dust. But he’s definitely, unmistakably, gone. His blood runs cold at the thought. Crowley, out there again. His mother’s murderer, the erstwhile king of Hell. Free.

“Do you think they took him?” he asks, trying to make sense of what footprints there are. But they’re too confusing, an aimless pattern around the chair and the pulpit. He can’t tell which are Sam’s and which are Dean’s, even. He risks another step closer, and catches sight of what look like scorch marks on the floor. Did they burn him? he wonders, staring at them.

“Perhaps,” Castiel says slowly. “But—”

With a crash, the whole building shakes suddenly, throwing Kevin to his knees. “What the hell?” he gasps. The crossbow nearly falls, but he manages to get a grip on it again just as the door blows off its hinges and crashes into the far wall.

A woman walks in.

“Well, well,” she says, a cold smile splitting her face. Kevin freezes with the crossbow halfway up, staring in mingled shock and horror. Whoever she is, she’s been burned, badly; her skin is bubbled and cracked, oozing thin red lines all over her arms. “Not what I was expecting to find, but it’ll do.” She throws out a hand, and both Kevin and Castiel lift up from the floor and spin through the air until they smack into the wall just behind them, pinned there side by side.

Abaddon, Kevin realizes, his heart thudding in his ears. The Knight of Hell. The one demon out there as bad, if not worse, as Crowley.

“Now tell me,” she purrs, putting her burned face close and smiling even wider. “Where’s Crowley?”

***

So this is Abaddon, Castiel muses, looking at the creature before him. A woman’s body, certainly, one that bears the marks of holy oil and fire. He is surprised that she has returned to it at all, that she wears it even now that it has been damaged. But then he sees it: every moment she heals a little more, her skin smoothing as he watches, her dark red hair seeming to gain luster with every toss of her head, until she looks every inch the Knight of legend, tall and lithe, beautiful of face and dark of heart.

“I’m waiting,” she says, and twists her now-perfect fingers. An invisible hand seems to grab Castiel by the throat. “Let me ask you again. Where,” the hand tightens, “is,” her eyes narrow, “Crowley?”

“We don’t know,” the boy, Kevin, coughs.

“Please,” Abaddon scoffs. “You’re the Winchesters’ pet prophet, aren’t you? And you must be the angel.” The hand releases suddenly, and Castiel gasps and gulps down air, disconcerted by how badly his body now requires it. “And you’re here, which tells me everything else I need to know. So, be good little boys and give me what I want, and I won’t drag this out.”

She means to kill them. It’s not a surprise, of course, but Castiel feels a rush of real fear chilling his now-frail body. If she kills them, if he and Kevin die here, then Dean and Sam are lost. He will have failed Dean, again.

Castiel cannot allow that to happen.

He thinks of the angel blade he carries, stowed in an inner pocket of his coat and currently pressed hard against his back. He cannot reach it, not pinned like this. He isn’t even sure if it will harm her; very little can harm the Knights of Hell. But there is no other recourse, nothing else he or the boy can possibly do. It will have to serve.

But how to get to it?

“You have no idea what I’ve been through,” Abaddon is saying. She’s pacing in front of them now, her blood-red nails tapping on the now-smooth skin of her arms. She turns suddenly, grabbing Castiel by the throat with her actual hand, her nails jabbing into his skin. “Because if you did, you wouldn’t be holding out on me, my little angel.” She leans in close. “My kingdom has been taken from me, thanks to your friends,” she hisses, her lovely eyes piercing his. “And so this is my kingdom now, and I will not lose it to a mere _salesman_ , do you understand me?”

“We really don’t know,” the boy pleads. “We came to see—”

“Are you sure about that?” Abaddon says, turning to him. “Because I only need one of you alive, and if you keep wasting my time…” She stretches out her other hand, the fingers crooked, the nails pointed.

Kevin raises his crossbow and fires.

It shouldn’t even faze her, and it doesn’t, for long. But for the brief moment after the bolt hits, she staggers, and the power holding the two of them against the wall breaks.

They tumble to the floor, landing hard, and pain races up Castiel’s legs, distracting him for a few precious seconds. “Go!” Kevin yells, tugging at his arm, and Castiel gathers himself and pushes him off, then reaches into his coat with a trembling hand. He will not sacrifice the boy for this.

“So you want to play, do you?” Abaddon seethes. She reaches up and plucks the bolt from her shoulder, grimacing as she touches it. “All right then. Let’s play.” She tosses the bolt aside, then moves forward so quickly that Castiel barely even sees it; her hand shoots out, grabbing Kevin by the throat and lifting him up high, until his shoes dangle several feet over the floor. With her other hand, she takes the crossbow from him and crushes it into splinters. “You could be useful, you know,” she informs him, her face twisted with rage, “but now you’ve pissed me off, and I don’t think my new Hell on Earth really needs a prophet. Do you?”

Kevin wheezes, kicking out his feet. Abaddon laughs easily, holding him out farther, so that he cannot hope to reach her. She is not looking at him now, Castiel realizes. Her attention is on Kevin, on thwarting his feeble attempts to free himself. His hand closes around the hilt of the blade.

“Watch this, angel,” Abaddon calls. Blood trickles down over the fingers holding Kevin’s throat. “Watch what I do to your friend. Maybe then you’ll talk.”

“No,” Castiel grunts. The pain has made him weak, his movements unsure, but he pushes all of that aside. Nothing matters except that he and Kevin survive long enough to escape and find Dean and Sam. Hand shaking, he pulls the blade free and stumbles forward, stabbing it into her side with all his strength.

Abaddon screams. She drops Kevin and lurches back, her hands going to the angel blade protruding from her flesh. Flashes of light spark around the wound, but not the flare that signifies a death. It has harmed her, yes, painfully so, but it does not have the power to kill.

All he has done is bought them a few seconds, at most.

He tries to think. The angel blade has failed; there is no other option. But they don’t need to kill her, he reminds himself, glancing at the dusty floor and then at the chair just beyond her. They just need to escape.

And there is a devil’s trap mere feet away.

Abaddon is still bent sideways, hissing with pain as she carefully draws the blade out. Castiel throws himself forward, hoping to gain the advantage while she is still off-balance. They collide with such force that they both fall, sprawling across the floor. Castiel grapples for her shoulders, pushing with every scrap of strength his body has to offer, rolling them both until they slam into the legs of the chair. The chains rattle, and Abaddon howls with mingled pain and fury.

“Castiel!” Kevin shouts behind them.

“You!” Abaddon storms, and pain, pain beyond anything he has felt so far, slices through his arm. Castiel cannot stop the scream that builds in him, cannot fight when Abaddon claws at his face, opening stinging stripes in the skin of his cheek. At least Kevin will escape, he thinks, his thoughts drifting in a sort of fog now.

Then he is seized from behind. Someone — the boy, the prophet, Kevin — is dragging him away from her, over the lines of the devil’s trap. Abaddon lunges for them, her face twisted beyond beauty into something terrifying, but she cannot reach them. She cannot cross.

“Come on!” Kevin pants, and he pulls Castiel to his feet. Castiel forces himself to focus, to put aside the agony still pounding through him and regain control over his body. Dean needs him, he reminds himself. Dean and Sam both need him. He cannot fail them now.

“We must go,” he gasps as soon as he is able. He grabs Kevin’s wrist with his uninjured arm and begins to run, weaving his way through the room, heading for the gaping doorway and the car beyond.

“Your blade!” Kevin reminds him.

“Forget it,” Castiel replies, grim. “That trap will not hold her for long.”

“This isn’t over!” Abaddon shouts after them as they burst through the doorway into the twilight, her voice echoing as they pound across the cracked pavement to the waiting vehicle. Kevin throws himself in on the driver’s side, so Castiel circles around and takes Sam’s usual seat, the same he occupied on the drive here. He closes his eyes.

We are coming, he promises them.

The car peels out of the lot, going so fast that Castiel is thrown to the side. His arm collides with the door, and the resulting pain makes his vision go gray. Even now, it is a surprise, the pain. Castiel supposes he should be inured to it; he has felt pain before, many times, but not without his grace. Not as a human.

“Shit,” Kevin swears. He is driving, his hands so tight on the wheel his knuckles have paled. Blood streaks the skin of his neck in dried rivulets. “Shit, maybe Sam and Dean had a point about staying in the bunker. I can’t believe we got out of that.”

“We would not have, had you not shot her,” Castiel says, grave. “A mere bolt should not have affected her, but—”

“It was made of iron and dipped in holy water and salt,” Kevin says, wry. “I had two weeks with nothing else to do, you know.” He glances at Castiel, his eyes wide and unsure. “So what are we gonna do now?”

“We must find them,” Castiel responds immediately. It is hard to get the words out; his teeth keep wanting to clench, and his breath is coming in short sharp bursts. Carefully, he moves his arm, and is rewarded with another spike of fresh pain. Blood flows freely, dripping down his arm and pooling on his legs. There is a dark wet slice on the back of his forearm, the skin gaping open. The angel blade, he thinks, staring at it. She must have cut him with it. The wound is grievous, yes, but no more than any other made with a blade.

He is truly no longer an angel.

“What about the hospital?” Kevin inquires. “Maybe they left some clue behind. And,” he hesitates a moment, “we could have your arm looked at.”

Castiel shakes his head. “Angels,” is all he says. Gritting his teeth, he pinches the sides of the gash closed. His skin is slick with blood, but with the help of the tails of his coat, he manages to staunch the flow. “We’ll need a needle, and dental floss,” he informs Kevin. “Dean always sews up Sam’s wounds with dental floss.”

“I’ve got a first aid kit in my bag,” Kevin replies, steering the car off onto a side road. “Better hope tape and gauze is enough.”

Castiel is quiet for the several moments it takes Kevin to mop up the blood and tape the wound shut. He considers their options as Kevin works, trying his best to ignore the pain and work through the problem. It is true that they cannot go near the hospital for fear of the angels who attacked Dean and Sam in Castiel’s name, but it is also true that they have no options left. There is no one else to contact, no other ally of either him or of the Winchesters to ask for help, and Kevin is correct: what Dean told him covers such a wide area that it could take them literally months to find them.

It’s a reckless idea, the one that comes to him then. Any number of angels would hear him, and several have already tried to end his life in retribution for their exile; he has no doubt that many more wish it. But some of them are still his friends, he hopes. Some of them may be willing to help.

All he needs is one.

Once they are back on the road, Castiel bows his head, reminding himself that praying for assistance risks not only himself, but Kevin as well. But if he does not…

If he does not, then they may as well give up all for lost right now.

Gingerly, he presses his hands together and bows his head. _This is Castiel,_ he prays. _To any angel who is listening, I am in need of your help. It is a matter of life or death. Moreover, it is a matter of keeping alive our only hope of regaining Heaven._ It’s true, he thinks privately. If anyone is capable of doing so, it is the Winchesters. _If you are willing, I will pray again soon with my location._

They drive in silence for several hours, stopping for a few minutes at a small town gas station in order to relieve themselves and wash their various wounds. “I’ll gas up and get us some food,” Kevin says when they’re done, leaving Castiel alone in the bathroom. He stares at his reflection in the mirror for a long moment. His face is pale, his eyes bloodshot, and four angry parallel lines mar his cheek. His arm throbs, and he no longer has an angel blade. He should not do this, he thinks.

Then he shuts himself in a stall and repeats the prayer, adding the name of the town and his location.

And he waits.

No one comes in. No angel, no human, no one. Castiel had expected an attack more than he had expected help, but he had not expected nothing. He waits longer, long enough that Kevin finally returns, his arms full of doughnuts and carbonated drinks. “You okay?” he asks, his expression concerned. “Come on, we should get out of here.” He unearths one hand to hold out a bottle of juice to him. “And you should eat and drink, you lost a lot of blood.”

Perhaps it’s for the best, Castiel thinks, taking the juice and following Kevin back to their purloined car. At least this way, he has not put Kevin in danger. And he is not alone, now; with Kevin’s help, they may yet determine a way to follow the trail Dean left. Perhaps the call itself can be tracked, somehow. The technology involved is beyond his ken, but—

At that thought, Castiel sits bolt upright, realization flooding him. He was wrong, about there being no one else to ask for help, about there being no other avenue than the fallen angels.

No. There is another.

***

Charlie grabs her phone practically before it even rings. She’s been waiting for weeks for this call, though she’s been hoping it would be Dean himself, or Sam, who made it. But, she thinks as she checks the caller ID, she’ll take Castiel too, if it means someone will tell her just what the hell (please, don’t let it be literal Hell) is going on.

“Castiel!” she answers, slightly breathless. “Where are Sam and Dean? Why are you calling instead of them? What _happened_?”

There’s a long silence on the other end. Then a voice, far more gravelly and unsure than she’d expected, asks, “Is this Charlie?”

“Yes, of course,” she says, impatient. She glances at the laptop screen in front of her. LadyCatherinePrentice is typing something at her, probably asking where they should meet up. Charlie has a sneaking suspicion the answer is going to be “never,” or, at the very least, “not today.” It’s too bad, really; they both love RPGs and _The Hobbit_ and agree on most major topics (save a few mostly minor disagreements regarding the _Star Trek_ reboot). Plus, as far as Charlie can tell, Catherine’s not a ghost or a monster or a vampire or even a run-of-the-mill murderer. In fact, she seems relatively normal, which at this point in Charlie’s life is a major bonus.

But the (possible) end of the world is kind of more important than meeting some girl.

“You know who I am,” Castiel says, almost as if it’s a question. “But — we have never met.”

Of course she knows who Castiel is. She’s read the books, after all. Even the unpublished ones someone “found” and posted online. “I got your number from Dean,” she says, spinning in her chair so that the laptop is to her back. “Well, Dean’s phone. I copied all his contacts last time I saw him, you know, just in case.” A thought occurs to her. “Wait, how did you get my number?” It’s not like she’s in the phonebook, after all.

She hopes the answer is that Dean gave it to him. Recently.

“Kevin found it, on one of Dean’s many phones,” Castiel replies. There’s another pause. “Do you, er…”

“I know who Kevin is too,” she cuts him off, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Castiel wasn’t this easily flustered in the books, was he? “Please, tell me what’s happening. I saw the sky, you know, that night. I’ve tried calling them but it just goes to voicemail, and they haven’t answered any of my emails either. I’ve been going nuts over here, man.”

“That is why I’m calling you,” Castiel says, and something in his tone makes the hair on the back of her neck rise. This isn’t going to be good, she can tell already. She pictures the two of them the last time she saw them: Sam, looking wrecked, and Dean, looking even more beat down than usual. Her chest tightens.

 _Please let them be okay,_ she begs the universe.

But the universe isn’t listening, because it’s as bad as she’d feared. They’re not dead, no, but what Castiel tells her is almost worse. She squeezes her eyes shut as Castiel talks, her mind reeling at the news. Sam and Dean, the closest thing she has to family left in this world, are missing.

_Missing._

“Three weeks,” she repeats, faintly. “And Dean said Sam was,” her voice falters, “was dying?” Not Sam, she thinks, remembering his gentle smile the last time she saw him, after she’d woken up from that nightmare, and the warm hug he’d given her before she’d driven away. Dean is the one she feels closer to, but she can’t lose Sam, not before she has a chance to tell him what he means to her.

And if she can’t lose Sam, how could Dean possibly stand it?

“Not in those words, but yes.” Castiel’s voice sounds raw now, each word scraping over the line. “We must find them before that happens. Charlie, Kevin and I have found nothing, not at the bunker or at the church where they were. All we have to go on is that one phone call from Dean.”

Charlie blinks.

“Dean called you?” she asks, grabbing at that fact like it’s a lifeline. Castiel had said it before, she remembers now, but it hadn’t really registered. “He called your cell, right? From his?”

“Yes,” Castiel confirms. “That’s why I contacted you. Can you—”

“I’m in Chicago,” Charlie interrupts. “Tell me where you are and we can meet halfway. Or I’ll come there. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it, just _bring that cell_.”

She can hear the relief in Castiel’s voice as they quickly make arrangements to meet. He and Kevin are still at the bunker in Kansas, so they decide to meet in Omaha, which is sort of halfway between their locations (well, more like two thirds of Charlie’s way, but she doesn’t care) and also almost directly due south of Sioux Falls, Sam and Dean’s last known location. “I can be there in about seven hours,” Charlie tells Castiel after a couple quick calculations. “Don’t do anything with your phone before you see me, okay?”

“I will not,” Castiel vows, and they both hang up.

Charlie spins back around and sets her phone down, staring at the open laptop on her desk. The screen saver’s on, but when she touches the scrollpad it wakes up, showing her Catherine’s last seven messages, all some variation on, ‘ _Rose? Are you there?_ ’ She hesitates, then bites her lip and closes the laptop down.

She may not be saving the world, this time. But she’ll settle for saving Sam and Dean.

Seven hours and twenty-six minutes later, she’s sitting in a coffee shop in Omaha, her laptop open in front of her and her leg jittering nervously under the table as she waits for Castiel and Kevin to arrive. She wonders if she’ll recognize them when they walk in. The books described Castiel, yes, but they also described Sam and Dean, and most of that was, to put it charitably, somewhat exaggerated.

But the moment he walks in, she knows it’s him. It’s not the dark hair or the deep blue eyes or the chiseled jaw, though he does have those, just as described; it’s something about the way he looks around, his brow furrowed, as if he still doesn’t quite have the hang of any of this. Charlie raises a hand and waves, gesturing for him and for Kevin, who must be the cute frazzled-looking kid behind him, to come over.

“Charlie?” Castiel says as they approach, and his voice is even deeper and raspier in person. It’s almost as gravelly as Dean’s, which she wouldn’t have thought possible. She almost smiles, wondering how Sam stands listening to the two of them talk for any length of time. But then she remembers why he’s here, why _she’s_ here, and the smile dies.

“Phone,” she replies, holding out her hand.

Castiel gingerly sets the phone on her palm. She waves at him and Kevin with her other hand, indicating that they should sit, and thumbs the screen on. It’s charged, thank goodness. She checks the call history first, finds the call Dean made and mentally notes the date and time. She’ll need those later.

Neither Castiel nor Kevin says much of anything to her while she works, which she’s grateful for. Most of the time she’s all right with being asked questions and getting to show off a little, but not right now, not while she’s doing something as important as this. The whole thing’s easy, in theory: hack into the service provider’s records and find the record of this particular call, then trace which cell towers handled it to get an approximate location. In practice, though, it’s a little more complicated. Cell phone companies are notorious for their security measures, and while she can do it, it’s going to take time. Especially over crappy coffee shop wifi.

Hours pass, the sky going from near-dusk to full-on night as Charlie works. She doesn’t know how long it’s been, exactly, when Kevin asks her, his voice barely above a whisper, “Hey, Charlie, what kind of coffee do you want? Or tea?”

“Hazelnut mocha,” she whispers back. “And thanks, Kevin.”

He touches her shoulder, silently acknowledging her, and then reappears a few minutes later and shoves a cup into her hand. He does this several more times, enough that Charlie loses count, all without ever saying another word. She likes this kid, she decides, with the small part of her brain not fully focused on what she’s doing.

It’s past midnight when she finally has it. Her eyes are blurring and her head is aching from being under the glaring fluorescent lights overhead (and from all the coffee, too, of course), but she _has it_. “They’re in Nebraska!” she announces, her voice trembling from both fatigue and sheer giddy excitement. “They’re south of here, somewhere near this tiny little nowhere town. It’s an hour or so away, two tops. No exact location, but I got narrowed down to a pretty small radius. We’ll just drive it till we find them.”

There are tears in her eyes, actual damn tears. She wipes them away and grins at Castiel, who furrows his brow and asks, voice shaking almost imperceptibly, “Is there corn there?”

Charlie laughs out loud. “There’s nothing but fucking corn out there, as far as I can tell.” She stows her laptop in its bag and stands up. “Come on, guys, we’ve got Winchesters to save.” 

She slings the bag over her shoulder and looks down at Castiel and Kevin, who are both still seated. At her look, Kevin starts to get up, his expression a mixture of elation and exhaustion, but Castiel doesn’t move, just stares at her, his eyes wide. No, she realizes. He isn’t looking at her, but at something behind her. She spins around.

Not something. Someone.

A man is standing there, so close that she’s not sure how she could have failed to notice him approaching. He’s tall and kind of nondescript-looking, handsome (if you like that kind of thing) but not particularly memorable, except for the way he’s looking at them. His eyes are a muted sort of hazel brown, but they’re fixed on the three of them with such single-minded intensity that Charlie can feel chills creeping up her spine. She backs up a few steps until her hip collides with the table, her hand tightening on the strap to her bag so hard that her knuckles turn white.

Castiel stands up so fast his chair falls backward. “Who exactly are you?” he demands, his voice shaking. “Why have you come?”

“My name is Ezekiel,” the man replies, his voice soft and almost entirely without inflection. “I heard your prayer, Castiel. And I am here to help.”


	4. CHAPTER THREE

  
  
_the world is stuck in delirium_  


“I have been following you,” Ezekiel explains before Castiel has a chance to speak. “I was unsure of your intentions, and so did not reveal myself.” He steps forward, inclining his head toward Castiel. “I apologize that I took so long. But I am here now, and I will lend whatever assistance you require.”

Ezekiel. A good soldier, Castiel remembers. One who had believed in their shared cause, who had agreed that the Earth and its people were worthy of protection. One of the few Castiel would still trust at all. He almost can’t believe it.

“Is that an angel?” Charlie demands, spinning to face Castiel so fast that her red hair flies out around her in an arc. “You called for help from an angel? The same angels who have been trying to _kill you_?”

“Over a week ago,” Castiel admits, his voice low. “There was no answer. Until now.”

“You didn’t tell me,” Kevin says, quietly. His tone is wounded, accusing. Betrayed. Castiel closes his eyes, shame filling him. He has heard Dean sound like this, before. He’d vowed never to betray a friend again.

“He kind of failed to mention it, yeah,” Charlie snaps.

They don’t have time for this argument, not now, not with Sam and Dean so close. Sam may not have the time to spare, and it’s already been far too long. He will not betray them too. “Please,” he says, opening his eyes to regard them both. “Please, let’s go. I will explain on the way, but _please_.”

Kevin glances at Charlie, his expression uncertain. She purses her lips, frowning and suddenly reminding Castiel so strongly of Dean that he has to look away for a moment. “Is he coming?” she asks, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder at Ezekiel.

Ezekiel lifts his head, regarding them silently.

“He must,” Castiel says, and risks looking directly into Charlie’s eyes. She has to understand, and quickly. It may already be too late. “I can’t heal Sam, do you understand me? Whatever is wrong with him, I can do nothing, _nothing_ to help. But Ezekiel can.”

Charlie’s expression softens. She glances at Ezekiel again, then looks at Kevin and raises her eyebrows. Kevin rakes his hands through his hair, then nods. “All right,” Charlie says shortly, turning back to Castiel, who lets out his breath in a sudden rush. “Let’s go.”

They take Charlie’s car, leaving the one he and Kevin have been using behind, the keys on the driver’s seat. After procuring a small canister of gasoline and stowing it in the trunk — Charlie makes a face at that, but doesn’t say anything — Kevin sits in the front with her, leaving Castiel to climb into the back, which is significantly smaller in Charlie’s car than it is in the Impala. He maneuvers until he manages to seat himself behind her, then watches, surprised, as Ezekiel settles down onto the bench seat next to him, his tall frame folded awkwardly behind Kevin’s seat. “I will call when we find them and you can meet us then,” Castiel begins, uncertain why Ezekiel is even deigning to travel in a car at all.

Ezekiel shakes his head. “I cannot,” he says, softly. “I was… injured, in the fall, and this vessel is weak. I will do what I can for your friend, but I must not overextend myself beforehand.”

Castiel nods, apprehension flickering at the corners of his thoughts. If Ezekiel is unable to assist—

No. He will not think of it.

Charlie fiddles with her cell phone for a moment, then sets in a holder on the dash and turns the key in the ignition. “All right,” she says, her eyes meeting Castiel’s in the rearview mirror as she pulls out of the parking lot, “now talk.”

Castiel does. He leaves nothing out, explaining his desperation, his misguided desire to protect Kevin from potential attack, his guilt over his role in the situation, everything. “And this is Ezekiel,” he concludes, nodding at his fellow angel. No, he reminds himself. Not fellow. Castiel draws a breath, then adds, “We can trust him.”

Both Charlie and Kevin nod at that. Charlie’s expression, what Castiel can see of it, is much more genial, and Kevin even glances over his shoulder and gives him a faint smile. So, after some hesitation, Castiel also relates what Ezekiel told him of the angel’s weakened state. Ezekiel shifts, uncomfortable, but if Castiel has learned one thing from his interactions with humans, it’s that keeping secrets is never for the best.

“Let’s hope it’s enough,” Charlie murmurs. Her hands are still tight on the wheel, and she’s leaning forward, her shoulders tense as she guides the car down several smaller roads. She doesn’t look at him again as she says, “Thanks, Castiel. For telling us. But don’t do anything like that again, got it? Just because it _might_ have worked out this time doesn’t mean it wasn’t a completely freaking stupid thing to do.”

“No,” Castiel agrees. “It was... foolish, at best.”

“Damn right it was,” Charlie agrees. “But I get it, I do. We all do stupid things, you know, for—”

“For family,” Kevin says firmly.

Castiel bows his head.

All of them remain silent for several long minutes, the only sounds the rumble of the tires over the pavement and the occasional tinny voice issuing orders from Charlie’s cell phone, instructing her on which turns to take. Castiel watches the landscape roll by outside his window, vast shadowy fields of plants he assumes are corn, all lit by the bright moon overhead. He catches glimpses of the occasional building as they drive, but otherwise the view remains unchanged. No wonder Dean couldn’t say where they were, he thinks.

He’s not sure how long it has been when Charlie suddenly exclaims, her voice shaking with excitement, “There’s the Impala!” She stabs a finger at the windshield, pointing at the road in front of them. They all lean forward, even Ezekiel, peering into the darkness. After a moment, Castiel spots the familiar shape of the Winchesters’ vehicle, the black of it melting into the shadowed background but the edges gleaming silver in the moonlight. And beyond it, set back from the road, he can just make out the peak of a roof, silhouetted against the star-filled sky.

They’ve found them.

Charlie brings the car to a halt just behind the Impala. Castiel unlatches his door before she’s even shut the engine off and climbs out, squinting into the darkness. The house itself looks empty, but then he sees the faintest hint of smoke wafting from the mouth of a large pipe set in the roof.

“They’re here,” Kevin says next to him, his voice hushed, and Castiel nods. Charlie joins them, her cell phone in her hand; a light blazes from it, bright enough to illuminate their way. As one, the three of them walk down the overgrown path leading to the front door, Ezekiel trailing a few steps behind. “Do we just open it?” Kevin whispers when they reach it. Even Charlie, whom Castiel has to come to regard as singularly decisive in this short time, makes no move toward it.

Castiel knocks.

They wait several tense moments. Then the door is flung open, and Dean is there. Dean stands in the doorway, a gun clutched in one hand, and Castiel can feel relief threatening to weaken his knees.

“Dean!” Charlie cries.

“Charlie?” Dean croaks, just as she flings herself into his arms, the light from her phone bouncing around them. Dean catches her, the hard look on his face gentling. His face is bruised, Castiel observes, concern replacing the relief. One eye is dark and puffy, and he can see the shadows of several other bruises along the line of Dean’s jaw and around his mouth, even through the ragged growth of hair covering most of his cheeks and chin. He’s also lost weight; despite his layers, Castiel can see that Dean’s clothes hang far too loosely on him. He looks terrible, Castiel thinks, his chest tightening.

“We traced your call,” Charlie says into Dean’s chest, tears thickening her voice. “Call me first next time, christ, it took these guys a week just to find my damn number.”

“Charlie,” Dean mumbles again, slumping against her. Kevin scrambles forward to take the gun from him. To Castiel’s surprise, Dean allows it, giving up the weapon without a fight and then wrapping his arms around Charlie, resting his cheek against the top of her head. “Kevin, you here too, man?”

“Here,” Kevin responds, his voice choked. He holds out his free hand, and Dean clasps it briefly.

“And I,” Castiel says, impulsively reaching out. Dean doesn’t react, doesn’t reach out for him as well, and Castiel tells himself not to be hurt by it. “I’m here, Dean. Where—” Unexpectedly, his throat closes, as the full implication of Dean’s distressed state occurs to him. He swallows, and asks, his voice barely above a whisper, “Where is Sam?”

Dean abruptly jerks away from Charlie, his eyes flying open. “Sam,” he repeats, and Castiel has never heard him sound like this in all the time he’s known him. Even in the face of the apocalypse, Dean had never sounded quite this wrecked, this devoid of hope. Castiel’s heart begins to race.

“Is he…” Kevin trails off.

Dean scrubs a hand over his eyes, uttering a sharp bark of a laugh. “Oh, he’s alive,” he rasps, and to Castiel’s shock, his face seems to crumple. As a rule, Dean tries not to show when he’s suffering; the fact that he’s not even attempting to hide it this time scares Castiel more than anything he could have said. “But I can’t wake him up. He can’t breathe, he barely drinks, he’s fucking _hurting_ , and I can’t—” his voice hitches, “—I can’t fucking wake him up.”

“Oh god,” Charlie whispers. 

“Take me to him,” Ezekiel says somberly, stepping forward. “I will see what I can do.”

Dean’s head jolts up, his expression slamming closed. “Who the fuck is that?” he growls, moving to block the doorway. “What the hell, Cas?”

“I…” Castiel hesitates. But if he was able to explain his reasoning, however misplaced, to Charlie and to Kevin, whom he has not known long, he should be able to explain it to Dean. “I prayed for help from the angels, Dean,” he says, voice low. “Ezekiel answered.”

Even in the shadows of the doorway, Castiel sees Dean’s eyes flash with sudden anger. “You prayed,” he repeats, gritting out each word. “You prayed, after you ignored me when I told you to wait before going to Metatron. You prayed, when I fucking told you that angels had attacked us looking for you. It’s your goddamn fault the angels are even here, and now you’ve brought one of those winged dicks with you?”

His words are like daggers, each one slicing into him as surely as the angel blade sliced his skin. Castiel steps back, unable to speak for a moment, unable to form any sort of rebuttal. Because there isn’t one, he knows. He is responsible for the fall of the angels, no matter that Metatron duped him into it. If he had just listened to Dean, if he had just waited, so much could have been avoided. Dean and Sam’s very situation could have been avoided — _would_ have been avoided — and Castiel knows it. He knows it all.

But his guilt, his pain, even Dean’s anger, doesn’t matter right now. 

Sam matters.

“Dean, listen to me,” Castiel says urgently, holding up both hands. “Yell at me all you like later, I deserve it. But right now Sam needs help, and Ezekiel is willing. Let him help Sam, please.”

Dean glowers at Ezekiel for a long moment, equal parts distrust and desperation burning in his eyes. Then he jerks his head in a nod and steps aside.

Ezekiel leads the way into the house, seemingly not hampered by the lack of the light or needing any direction. Charlie and Dean come next, Charlie’s phone providing light, with Castiel and Kevin bringing up the rear. Castiel’s heart is racing again, and his breathing is coming in shallow gasps. He’s afraid, he realizes.

He wishes he could pray.

Ezekiel is already kneeling at his side when Castiel catches his first glimpse of Sam. He stops dead, causing Kevin to accidentally jostle him. A moment later the light illumining Sam begins to tremble, and Castiel can hear Charlie’s sharp intake of breath. “Oh,” she whispers. It’s all that needs to be said.

If Dean has lost weight, his is nothing compared to Sam. Even closed, his eyes appear sunken, too large for his face. His cheeks are merely stubbled with hair, but it emphasizes how gaunt his features have become, how sharp the bones are, how tightly his skin seems stretched over them. Even in this light, Castiel can tell that he’s pale, gray-skinned and shadowed, with bruises blotching his arms and face. His breath rattles in his chest, sounding wet and painful, and as they watch, he begins to thrash, alternately coughing and keening in pain, his voice ragged and broken. 

“Help him,” Dean says to Ezekiel, pleading, both terror and deep love threading his voice.

Ezekiel lays both hands on Sam’s chest and closes his eyes. They all wait, tense, the light in Charlie’s hand slowly steadying as she regains control. Castiel’s heart seems to be in his throat, though he knows that is physically impossible. On the bed, Sam continues to thrash, his hands knocking into the frame, blood staining one corner of his mouth.

Then Ezekiel shakes his head.

“I cannot heal him,” he says, taking his hands away and looking up at Dean apologetically. “He is too far gone, and I am too weak. I was injured when I fell, and this vessel…” He trails off, gesturing at the body he wears. “It is merely a temporary measure, and is not strong enough to host me for much longer as it is.”

“So you can do nothing?” Dean asks, his voice breaking on the last word. 

Ezekiel shakes his head again. “I cannot, not in this vessel.” He hesitates, then says, “But perhaps… If I could heal him from inside…”

Castiel blinks. “You mean,” he says, slowly, “you may be able to if Sam were your ves—”

“No,” Dean snaps before Castiel can finish. “He’d never agree, he’d never allow it.”

“But if _you_ asked—” Ezekiel begins.

Dean clenches both fists. “ _No._ ”

Ezekiel lowers his gaze. 

“Why can’t he wake up?” Charlie asks then, her voice shaking.

“Sacrifice,” Kevin mumbles. They all look at him, even Ezekiel. Kevin shudders in a breath, then says, “What Naomi said. Finishing the Trials was supposed to kill him, be the ultimate sacrifice, right?” Tears gather in his eyes as he gestures at Sam’s thrashing figure. “Maybe she was wrong. Maybe this is the real sacrifice.”

“No.” Dean’s words are barely understandable. “No, that can’t — no, he can’t be stuck like this forever, I won’t let it. I won’t _let_ it.” He grabs Ezekiel’s shoulders, shaking him. “Can you,” he demands, his voice breaking, “can you at least end it?”

“I can,” Ezekiel says softly. “It will take all my strength, but I can.”

“No,” Kevin whispers. “No, Dean, you can’t.”

“He can’t wake up, Kevin,” Dean mumbles, swiping furiously at his eyes. “He’s hurting so goddamn much, I can’t — I can’t leave him like this, you haven’t been here, you can’t—” His voice fails.

“There must be another way,” Charlie says fiercely. She whirls on Ezekiel. “You’re an _angel_ , you’ve got to be able to do something!”

“His injury is too great,” Ezekiel replies, unaffected. He rises to his feet, his eyes fixed on Dean. “Perhaps,” he says, slowly, “I may be able heal him if you agree to host me instead.” Dean’s head snaps up. Ezekiel continues, not breaking Dean’s gaze, “You are a stronger vessel than the one I wear now. If you agree, I think I can heal him, and myself as well. I will have to heal him slowly, over the course of several days, even weeks, but I believe it can be done.” He holds out one hand to Dean, and for a moment Castiel thinks he sees something like desperation in his eyes, at odds with the otherwise calm repose of his face. “If you agree, I will not take control unless you wish it, and when we are both fully healed, I will find a different vessel.”

Dean hesitates, then shakes his head. “No,” he rasps. “No, Sammy would… Sammy would hate me for doing it.” He takes a deep, shaking breath, then looks down at Sam, who has quieted at last, blood streaking down from one corner of his mouth, his hands blossoming with new bruises. Dean strokes his own hand over Sam’s forehead, smoothing his hair back from his wan face. “He would hate it,” he repeats, but he is wavering, Castiel can tell. Dean’s love for Sam will always win, in the end.

He is going to say yes.

No. No, Castiel will not allow it. He won’t allow Dean to take this step, won’t allow Dean to sacrifice himself for Sam, won’t allow either alternative. Sam will not die tonight, and Dean will not become a vessel. “There is another option,” he says, and every one of them save Sam looks at him, questioning. Castiel holds out both hands and hopes what he is about to say is true.

“I am a vessel,” he says. 

“Cas,” Dean begins, but Castiel cuts him off. 

“Let me do this,” he implores. “I’m useless to you now, without my grace. It took me over three weeks to even find you, Dean. Sam had to suffer this long because of me, and my own arrogance caused Ezekiel’s injury in the first place. Let me take this risk.” He takes a step forward, locks eyes with Dean. “Let me be useful. Let me help save Sam.”

They look at each other for a long moment. Then Dean looks away, at Sam. And nods.

Castiel turns to Ezekiel, who is watching him closely. “Is it possible?” he asks him. “Can this body still serve as a vessel?”

“Your original vessel’s soul is gone?” Ezekiel inquires, and Castiel nods. It’s true; the original soul, Jimmy, died a long time ago now, escaped to Heaven after Castiel’s confrontation with Lucifer. It occurs to him, suddenly, that with Heaven closed, that may no longer be the case. He feels a fresh wave of guilt at his actions, but pushes it aside. He can worry about it later.

Ezekiel reaches out, brushing long cool fingers over Castiel’s forehead. Castiel closes his eyes, his body thrumming at the nearness of an angel’s grace, and waits. A moment later, Ezekiel says, “Your body will serve. I give you the same promise I made Dean, if you say yes.”

Castiel looks at Sam, lying prone on the bed. He looks at Dean, who’s watching with him hooded eyes, hope glimmering on the shattered edges of his expression. Then he looks at Ezekiel.

“Yes,” he says.

***

The sky flashes.

Sam stumbles to a halt, lifting his aching head and squinting upwards through the branches.  
At first, he can’t see any change. The sky is still a muted blue, featureless, broken only by the twisted canopy of branches stretching up overhead. He must have imagined it, he thinks blearily, as coughs rack his body, tearing at his ribs. His eyes burn, and he lets his head hang again as he shambles forward, moving again. Always moving.

There’s another flash, and Sam looks back up to see a silver glow tickling the distant horizon. As he watches, barely daring to believe it, the glow flows upward, expanding across the bowl of the sky until the whole forest is filled with light. Sam stops dead, staring now, his pain momentarily forgotten. It’s beautiful, the silver sheen of the sky. 

And it’s _different_. 

The glow brightens, moving down the trees in tendrils, leaving shimmery streaks in its wake. Trembling, Sam reaches out a hand and touches the closest trunk. The silver flows over his skin, spreading over him until he’s entirely encompassed by it. It’s like being doused with water on a hot day; coolness washes over him, easing the pain beating through him, cleaning away the muck and the dirt and the blood. Sam closes his eyes, breathing in deep, and for the first time in what feels like forever, he can. Air fills his lungs, clean air, and some of the haze in his mind clears. He breathes again, and again, coughing a little, but that's different too. It’s not the racking cough of before; it’s less painful, less consuming, somehow.

“Sam?” he hears. The voice is distant, so faint that he’s not sure he’s even heard it. He’s imagined things like this before, imagined he hears Dean’s voice, and it’s even worse when he realizes that it was all in his head, that’s he’s still alone. But he can’t help the surge of hope that threatens to overwhelm him. 

“Dean?” he whispers, or tries. His cracked lips shape the word, but he makes no sound.

Something touches his forehead then. It’s gentle, this touch, nothing like the grab of vines or the sting of thorns. It seems to wipe the pain from him, pushing it aside like a veil, and Sam shivers, leaning into it, his mouth again forming the shape of his brother’s name. God, he wants Dean, wants him with the same fierce intensity that’s kept him on his feet for this long. “Dean,” he tries again, his throat tightening, not daring to open his eyes in case he’s wrong.

“This is all I can do,” another voice says. “He still has pneumonia. I cannot fix that now without harming myself, but he will wake.” It’s closer than the first, clear enough that he can hear every word, and it’s not a voice he recognizes. It’s not a voice he would ever imagine. And he can still feel that touch on his forehead, smoothing back his hair. Since he’s been here, nothing’s touched him that hasn’t hurt. And the sky, he thinks, his breathing coming in erratic gasps now, the sky _changed_.

“Sammy, please,” the first voice says, and warmth seems to spread through him. He knows that voice. He’s imagined it so many times, thought of it every time he wanted to give up.

“Dean?” he whispers out loud, and opens his eyes.

At first, all he sees is a harsh glow, nothing like the silver of the sky, and he turns his head, shutting his eyes against it. “Sammy,” he hears again, and a hand touches his cheek, warm and tender. It’s Dean’s voice, Dean’s touch, Dean’s hand stroking his face, the rough calluses on his fingers so achingly familiar that Sam nearly sobs. “Sammy, come on,” Dean murmurs, his voice cracking. “Come on, man, open your eyes.”

“Move the light,” someone else says. The red glow behind his eyelids dims, and Sam opens his eyes again, gasping for breath, terrified hope making his whole body shake. He’s lying down, he realizes, not standing in the forest. It’s darker now, the world around him painted in muted shades of gray, and he’s in a room, with walls. The trees are gone, and there’s something soft under his head.

And Dean is there. Dean is there, his hand cupping Sam’s cheek, his face so close Sam can see every one of his freckles, even in the low light. His brother, right there, close enough to touch.

“Dean,” he chokes, tears springing to eyes. 

“Sammy,” Dean chokes back, and then his arms are around him, lifting him up, holding him tight. 

Sam buries his face in the crook of Dean’s neck and breathes deep, Dean’s familiar scent flooding him, the warmth of him soothing the lingering ache in Sam’s chest. He’s crying, he knows he is, but he doesn’t care. “Dean,” he mumbles, trying to hug him back. His arms feel heavy, weak and kind of rubbery, but he gets them around Dean’s shoulders after a brief struggle. He has to touch him, has to twist his fingers in the fabric of Dean’s shirt and hold on tight, has to make sure that this is truly, unmistakably real. His throat hurts, but he says it again, reveling in it. 

_Dean._ Dean is here. Dean is _here_ , and Sam isn’t alone anymore.

Dean’s eyes are wet too, he realizes, as Dean presses his cheek against Sam’s and rocks him, like when they were kids and Sam had had a bad dream. “Sammy, Sammy,” he’s almost chanting, saying his name over and over again like it’s a prayer, like it’s the only thing that matters, like Sam is the only real thing in the world right now.

Sam knows the feeling.

“You did it,” someone else says, sniffling, and Sam knows that voice too. 

“Charlie?” he croaks, opening his eyes and looking over Dean’s shoulder to see her standing just a few feet away. She’s lit from below, as if she’s holding a flashlight down by her side, and tears are streaming down her face. 

“Hey, Sam,” she says, breaking into a wide smile. “You bastard, you scared us!” She half-laughs, wiping at her eyes with her free hand. 

“Sorry,” Sam whispers. He wants to reach out, to touch her too, but he can’t bring himself to let go of Dean just yet. “Why are you…” he trails off, his voice failing him. 

“We’re all here,” someone else says, and it’s Kevin. Kevin’s there, standing next to Charlie and smiling, and Sam doesn’t think he’s ever seen him look that happy before. He wants to say something, to thank them both for being there, but he doesn’t have the words. It’s been so long since anyone has cared about the two of them.

“Cas too,” Dean whispers to him, one hand rubbing circles into his back, like he used to when Sam was sick. “They found us, Sam, and Cas healed you. With,” he hesitates, then finishes, “with some help.”

“I am sorry I could not complete the healing,” Castiel says, stepping out of the shadows on Dean’s other side, his face almost blank as he looks down at them. He sounds odd, Sam thinks, almost like he’s speaking through a filter. But when Sam whispers his name, his expression shifts. “Sam,” he returns, relief clear in his now-familiar voice. “It’s good to see you.”

“Cas,” Sam mumbles, and he’s crying again. He doesn’t know what’s going on or where he is or anything that’s happened, but it doesn’t matter. He’s _awake_. He’s awake, and they’re here, all of them. 

He’s not alone.

***

He watches, quiescent, as the hand of his new vessel touches the shoulder of the human he has just healed, listens as Castiel’s voice pronounces comforting words to him and his brother. The other two crowd in close as well, their attention focused on the human — Sam, he has gleaned — and not, as he had anticipated, on him. Even Castiel, who should by all rights be investigating the new angelic presence in his mind, is ignoring him in favor of Sam. A tiny seed of hope sprouts within him. Perhaps he has not made an error, allowing himself to become attached to another angel, albeit one who has lost his grace. Perhaps taking this risk will be worth it.

Perhaps now he will be safe.

“He’s falling asleep,” the brother, Dean, reports. He still cradles the weak form of his brother, his hands pressed tight against his back, his reddened eyes damp but his face radiant. He feels a momentary pang at that sight, at the clear evidence of such deep familial love. 

“After what he’s been through, of course he is,” the girl observes. She touches the brother’s cheek, patting it with such familiarity that he aches just watching it. “Sam’s fine, Dean, he just needs rest. It’s okay. It is, right?” She turns then, to look straight at him. A trill of fear races through him until he realizes. She is not looking at him, but at Castiel.

 _Is he all right?_ Castiel asks him.

For a moment he cannot answer, paralyzed by the notion that this, that speaking within Castiel’s mind to him, may be what gives him away. But not answering may have the same outcome, he knows, and so he replies, _He is not fully healed, and so will require sleep. But he will wake now._

Castiel repeats that, and there is no trace of suspicion in either his voice or his mind, no hint that he, or any of them, may harbor doubts about what was just said. They are too grateful, he thinks, watching as they all gather around the brother again, helping him to lift Sam, to maneuver his sleeping form down the shadowed halls. Even though he is not in control, he can still feel Sam’s warmth through Castiel’s hands. 

“Careful,” the brother warns as they turn a corner. Most of Sam’s weight is in his arms, but Castiel is supporting the legs, while the boy guides the brother and the girl lights the way.

His former vessel has fallen, he notes as they pass. The body has slumped to the wooden floor, unnoticed by any of the humans present, or even by Castiel. He is not surprised; he had kept the human’s consciousness dormant during the entirety of his residence there. He had had to, after obtaining his permission, in order to keep them both safe. 

Perhaps it was foolish, responding to Castiel’s prayer requesting aid. But he had sought after it anyway, too worried still about his ability to hide, hoping that if he answered the prayer, that if he brought these humans and this former angel into his debt, that it would serve as a further shield from notice. He had assumed that he would change to one of the brothers, trade one human vessel for another, and after he had met them, he had thought it the perfect solution. Both brothers are strong vessels, much more so than the one he used to wear, and in such great need. 

He had not expected to be refused.

But then the angel, Castiel, had offered instead, and he had nearly panicked. An angel, offering to host him? An angel, who must have heard the stories about his purported misdeeds, who no doubt believed them? He had almost left then, almost refused to heal Sam and gone instead to ground. But he had reconsidered. What better place to hide, unknown and unseen, than within an angel who has lost his grace, who is no more than human now? Any angel sensing his power would attribute it to Castiel. He would hide in plain sight. 

He would be safe.

“We brought gas,” the boy says to the brother. “You think you can get the Impala started?”

“Her windshield’s cracked,” the brother replies after a moment. “She probably needs a jump too. But yeah, she should be driveable.” His voice is still raw, still scraped by terror for Sam’s fate, but the relief in it is almost palpable, and at that moment he thinks that it was worth it, taking this risk, accepting the body of a former angel, if it means he was able to help. 

“Good,” the girl jokes as she kicks the door open and guides them out into the night. “Because Sam sure as hell isn’t gonna fit in my back seat.”

“That is definitely true,” Castiel says. It is strange, hearing the voice but not speaking the words. Stranger still is their reaction to those words; all of them, including Castiel, break into laughter at that. He cannot see the humor, but it does not matter. The happier they are, the safer he is.

He watches as they open the door to a long black vehicle, larger than the one they rode in to reach this place, and carefully position Sam on the back seat. The brother lingers over him, smoothing his hair out of his face, making sure the folded blanket under his head supports his neck, before he finally closes the door. 

“Where’s that gas?” he asks.

It is Castiel’s hands that remove the cardboard from the windshield of the vehicle, while the others deal with the issue of the gasoline. He feels the uneven surface as Castiel runs his fingers over the web of cracks, noting that the glass is still in one piece, despite the fracturing. “How does it look?” the brother calls.

“It will need to fixed,” Castiel calls back. “But it should hold up until you get to the bunker.”

Several minutes later, the brother is seated behind the wheel, the boy in the seat next to him. They have agreed that he will accompany the brothers back to the bunker, wherever that is. He is too wary to ask Castiel, too wary even to sift through Castiel’s memories to find the answer. He must not grow complacent, merely because he has not been discovered so far.

“Here goes nothing,” the brother mutters, and presses a silver key into a lock by the wheel. A rumbling sound fills the air, and the vehicle lights up, twin white beams shooting out from its front to light up the grass in the road and the tall stalks of the plants around them. The brother grins then, rubbing his hands over the wheel. “That’s my baby,” he smiles. 

“You have everything?” the girl asks him.

The brother snorts. “I’ve got Sam and my baby, I don’t need anything else.”

The girl punches him lightly on the shoulder. “You need your wallet and your phone too, you idiot,” she says, but she is smiling with affection. “You’re gonna need more gas soon, after all.”

“I’ve got money,” the boy says. “We’ll be fine, Charlie.”

The brother reaches out the window to clasp first the girl’s hand, and then Castiel’s. “I’ll see you both at the bunker soon.”

“Soon,” Castiel agrees.

“So I’ll take you two then,” the girl says after the brother’s vehicle has disappeared into the distance. She looks right at Castiel again, and he has the uncomfortable feeling that she is somehow seeing him and not Castiel, that she can see beyond Castiel’s eyes and into his very being. She raises one eyebrow. “Unless you don’t need such mundane things as cars now?”

“Ezekiel is weakened,” Castiel says, and he shudders a little, to hear that name. “We’ll ride with you.”

She pulls a jangling set of keys from her pocket and tosses them into the air. “Then let’s go.”

They are going to leave, he realizes. They are going to follow the brothers to this bunker and forget about this place. He cannot blame them, exactly, given what misery this house has seen. But they are forgetting something else as well, and he is not so far gone as to let them. Lie, yes, but he will not allow harm to come to another.

 _My former vessel,_ he risks saying to Castiel. _He is still in there._

Castiel stops dead. “Ezekiel’s vessel,” he says to the girl. It is all he needs to say; the girl immediately turns the light in her hand toward the path and heads back into the house. Castiel follows, and moments later they discover his vessel’s crumpled form, still unconscious. “Great,” the girl grouses as she gets her arms around his shoulders. “More lifting people.”

“We can’t leave him,” Castiel says, echoing his own thoughts.

“Of course not,” the girl says, grunting as they lift his former vessel and begin the journey back outside, to her vehicle. “Getting this guy in the back is going to be almost as much fun as it would have been with Sam, though. And what do we do with him once he’s in there, anyway? We can’t just take him to the bunker, can we?”

“A hospital, maybe?” Castiel offers. _Ezekiel,_ he adds silently, and it surprises him anew, hearing that name, realizing that Castiel still believes it is his. _Do you have a suggestion?_

 _Yes. A hospital_ , he ventures in reply, watching as they struggle to do the same for his vessel as they did for Sam, arranging his tall form on the cramped back seat of the girl’s vehicle. They do not, however, put anything under his head. _I found him within one’s walls, praying for guidance. He is alone in this world, and had been hurt in an accident. I healed what I could, but he may need more help._ It is even the truth.

Castiel relays this to the girl, who nods and gets behind the wheel. “As soon as we’re out of the dead zone,” she says, waving the electronic device in her hand, “I’ll look the closest hospital up and we’ll take him there.”

“And then the bunker?” Castiel asks as he folds his body into the seat next to hers.

“And then the bunker,” she agrees as she too turns a metal key in a lock. The vehicle roars to life, and she guides it down the rutted lane, the lights on the front shining out over the encroaching vegetation. 

The two of them fall silent, lost in their own thoughts. He stays away from Castiel’s, both to allow him his privacy, and to keep his own private as well.

He will stay quiet, he thinks. He will do as promised, stay hidden within this vessel, only taking control to heal Sam or to save Castiel’s life, such as it is. He would keep them safe, these humans, if he can. But if he is discovered… No. He will not be. They must not learn his secret. They cannot know who he truly is.

No one can ever know.


	5. CHAPTER FOUR

  
**PART TWO  
if you want blood you’ve got it**

  
_your cheap adhesive isn't holding me_  


Jody’s made her peace with the fact that her life sometimes resembles an episode of the X-Files, really. She’s even started to do a little work on the other side of law enforcement, keeping the peace beyond the grave, so to speak. But when the holding cells at her precinct fill up with the strangest collection of normal citizens gone bad, she figures it’s time to call in the big guns.

If the Winchesters would ever pick up their phones and call back.

“—So that’s what’s going on,” she finishes explaining to Dean’s voicemail. “Seriously, boys, give me a call as soon as you can.”

This is a little bit bigger than some of of the other hunts she’s chased down, but she’s careful, and the experience she already has under her belt has given her a healthy dose of paranoia. So she approaches it the way she would if this were a normal investigation. If she thinks of the rowdy bunch in the holding cells as victims and not perpetrators, then the logical course of action is to retrace their steps.

She starts with the first one — a teenaged girl who, by all accounts, started off as a good student, liked by her peers, with a healthy upbringing and stable home life. The picture drawn by those facts doesn’t reflect the sullen, violent young woman currently sitting in one of her cells. Questioning the girl’s motives leads nowhere fast, as she’s a strange combination of apathy and impulsiveness. Questioning her family leaves Jody a little disturbed; her mother states multiple times during the interview that she’s not her child anymore, that talking to her is like speaking to a blank wall.

The investigation leaves Jody chilled, and she still has over a dozen other people to look into. But she takes her time, does her due diligence, trying to track down something, anything to tie these people together. Their ages range from the youngest, the teenaged girl at 17, to the oldest, the most recent case, a woman brought in from her nursing home at 88. They’re an even mix of male and female, they range from dirt poor to quite comfortable, mostly white — one African-American and one American Indian — with a variety of body types and fitness levels. There’s even one woman Jody recognizes from her church services.

And it’s not just their backgrounds that’s giving her a headache. Whatever it is, whatever that she thinks might be wrong with them, they’re having different reactions to it. The teenaged girl is volatile and mercurial. The woman from Jody’s church group is eerily quiet, rubbing her hands on the cell wall until they’re raw and bloody, serene smile on her face. The old woman spews a constant stream of insults and threats, each more awful and cutting than the last.

The only thing that even remotely ties them together, she discovers after hours of legwork, is that all of them have recently taken planes that flew out from Lincoln County Airport instead of the bigger Sioux Falls Regional.

“Well, that’s something at least,” she mutters to herself. It narrows the playing field a bit, as there aren’t many commercial flights that link through that airport. It runs mostly small planes, single-engine outfits, though they can handle some larger flights coming in.

She calls an old friend, specifically a friend of her late husband who continues to work security at Lincoln County, and asks her to poke around without going into the deep specifics of the case, then emails her pictures of the “victims.” Jody’s not expecting much to come of it, but her friend personally recognizes several of the pictures.

“The girl,” her friend says. “I remember her in particular. She was hanging out by one of the back hangars. I remember because it was odd, she came in on a two-engine plane, but she was back by some of our crop-dusters.”

“Anything else you can tell me?” Jody asks.

“Not much more than that. I mean, one of the planes was leaking some pesticide and stinking up the place, so my attention was more on that than the kid. I told her to leave, she snapped at me, it got a little physical, but she left when her phone went off.”

So it sounds like whatever had happened to the girl had already happened at that point. So maybe, Jody thinks, maybe it happened there at the airport. 

“Can you show me that hangar?”

It’s not really that exciting of a field trip, though Jody takes a little extra protection, just in case — salt, of course, some holy water, and a silver knife. Anything more and her old friend might get suspicious. The hangar itself isn’t terribly interesting, a few small planes covered for storage, a few crop-dusters sitting out by the open door. It’s used almost entirely by the commercial pesticide companies, but is accessible by any of the pilots, private and commercial, in the area.

“Gotta start somewhere,” Jody mutters to herself. She shrugs and starts searching, looking for anything that might possibly be a clue. She finds it towards the back, the god-awful smell of rotten eggs, and a locked door. Jody gestures to her friend, who comes up next to her, her nose wrinkling at the smell.

“Ah, dammit. Another leak,” she mutters, turning away and pulling out her own phone. “I’m going to call the pesticide company and flag their aircrafts for inspection. This is a health and safety hazard—”

“Wait,” Jody says, “this is what you were talking about before?”

Her friend nods. “It’s a sulfur-based pesticide,” she explains. “It’s starting to become more popular. You can use it and still call your crops organic. Now, if you’ll excuse me...” She turns away, walks back to the front of the hangar.

Sulfur. Jody’s still pretty familiar with that supernatural call sign. Gritting her teeth, she goes up to the locked door, wipes at the knob with her hand. It’s all clean, but Jody’s instincts are screaming at her. Someone could have cleaned up residue on the knob, especially if they thought it was spilled pesticide. So she gets to her knees, takes out her silver knife, and scrapes under the door with it.

The edge of the blade is stained yellow.

She cleans the blade, gets to her feet and pulls out her phone. “Who’re you gonna call?” she mutters as she dials, and then prays, “Please pick up.”

To her relief, Sam and Dean do.

“Where have you two been?” she demands. “I could really use your help right about now.”

“We’ve been laid up for a while,” Dean replies. “It’s a long story. What’s going on?”

So she explains everything, her investigation, the sulfur, the twenty violent people cooling their heels in her holding cell, even goes into detail about the different reactions they’ve had to whatever it is that’s going on. When she finishes, there’s a long pause, and for a moment Jody wonders if she’s lost the call.

“It sounds like me,” Sam says finally, his voice tired and ragged and far away.

“No it doesn’t,” Dean argues, but Sam shoots back.

“Yes, it does, when I was soulless. Apathetic and violent, no regard for anyone’s feelings — sorry, Dean — and if I hadn’t had the hunting, I probably would have left a bigger trail of carnage behind.” 

“Is that a thing?” Jody asks. “On top of demons and monsters, I now have to worry about people losing their souls, too?” Though that just might be the big picture she’s been puzzling over.

“Yeah,” Dean replies, “but Sam’s case was kind of an extreme thing, not really something that happens all the time. That makes me think there must be at least one demon involved.”

“That’s okay,” Jody says, dry. “I remember my latin exorcisms just fine.” There’s another pause, overly long and a touch worrisome. “Sam? Dean? Talk to me, here.”

“We closed the gates of Hell,” Dean says at last. His voice is pained and raw, which makes Jody wonder how exactly the two of them know this piece of information, and how they were involved, and what the cost was. And she thinks about the two of them being laid up, and wonders if there’s a connection. She thinks she hears Sam say something, but it’s far away and she can’t make out the words. She waits, pacing a little, but Dean doesn’t elaborate, and Sam doesn’t say anything else.

“So, what happens if I try to exorcise a demon?” she asks after a moment.

“Hell if we know,” Dean replies. “Keep us updated, Jody. And stay safe.”

“I’ll do my best,” she replies, and they hang up. Not long after, her friend comes back, scowling and muttering at her phone.

“Sorry,” she tells Jody. “Those dickheads are giving me a hard time about leakage issues. So, where were we?”

Jody points. “What’s behind this door?”

And this is when things get interesting. Because her friend doesn’t tell her anything, doesn’t open the door and let her inside to check it out, but suddenly swipes her hand through the air, violently. Jody goes flying in that nauseating and familiar way, slams against the back wall hard and stays pinned there.

“Jody, Jody, Jody,” her friend coos, eyes flipping beetle-black in an instant. “I knew you were going to be like this. I knew it. You’re too damn thorough for your own good. Always have been.”

She grabs Jody with one hand, pulls her down from her place pinned to the wall, and drags her across the floor by her neck to the locked door. The door flies open, and then the demon tosses Jody through the opening. Jody sprawls across the floor, choking and gasping for air.

The demon stands over her, gloating in that over-the-top melodramatic way Jody’s come to recognize as part and parcel of the whole demon deal. She tunes out on the speech and the scenery-chewing and the “blah-blah-blah humans are pathetic” and pays more attention to her new surroundings and the limitations around her. It’s a small space, not exactly cramped, some sort of storage closet converted into a kind of office. It’s lit dimly, not by actual lights but by glowing balls of light in little jars. There are dozens of them, stored on every surface and packed into every corner.

The glowing balls, could those be...?

The demon lands a kick in Jody’s side, but Jody’s ready for it. She has the holy water out, flings a few drops in the demon’s direction. Enough lands that the demon hisses and draws back, black eyes narrowed and pissed. Jody scrambles up to her feet, flings a few more drops in the demon’s direction, and starts reciting the exorcism.

To her surprise, she isn’t even finished with the exorcism before the demon throws back its head and spews smoke into the air, laughing the entire time. The smoke swirls around the ceiling, just rippling and billowing there. She continues the exorcism until the very end, but the demon smoke doesn’t dissipate. Can’t dissipate, she realizes. With Hell closed, there must be nowhere for it to go.

She throws more holy water at it, the drops flying through the smoke to splash against the wall behind it, but the smoke reacts, funneling down through the crack under the storage room door and vanishing. It’s not a victory, not with the demon able to go back out and possess anyone it feels like possessing, but right here and now Jody feels like it’s progress.

She scoots over to her fallen friend, reaches for her neck to feel for a pulse. It’s there, weak, but there. Jody pulls out her phone and calls 911, and then looks around the room to try to figure out what she should do next. She has a cover story for what’s happened — a simple collapse with no further explanation is a pretty decent choice, she decides — but the room of glowing jars is another story.

Jody carefully pulls her friend from the storage room, back out into the main hangar area, and waits until the EMTs pull up in an ambulance and take her friend away. As soon as she can no longer hear the sirens, Jody goes back into the storage room and stares at all of the little jars.

“Here goes nothing,” she says to herself, and one by one, starts opening them. The glowing balls float up into the air like balloons, and then drift lazily out the door, blazing with light. Her chest fills with warmth looking at them, and she thinks that Sam and Dean were right, that these are souls, they have to be.

She gets through almost two dozen jars before she finds the first one filled with smoke. Thick, black, roiling, and ugly, like demon smoke. Exactly like the smoke that billowed out of her friend when the demon left her. Jody loosens the lid a little on the jar, and a thin tendril of smoke wisps out, moving like demon smoke, too. She screws the top back on, as tight as she can manage, her heart racing.

It’s a demon factory, she realizes. And someone is making an army.

She has to call Sam and Dean back.

***

The first few hours are a confused jumble of images: being in the Impala with his head on Dean’s shoulder while Dean drives, his fingers curled around the base of Sam’s neck; Dean half-carrying him into his room at the bunker and helping him into the bed; falling asleep mid-sentence, trying to ask what had happened. He remembers waking up just long enough to gulp down soup and to use the bathroom and then waking up again later, unable to stop coughing until Castiel came in and laid a hand on his forehead. 

When Sam wakes up again, Dean is there, slumped in a chair pulled up next to his bed, his chin on his chest. “Dean?” Sam whispers, and Dean stirs, blinking his eyes open.

“Hey, Sammy,” he yawns. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like shit,” Sam answers, honestly. But he throws the covers back and sits up, swaying a little. He’s had enough of sleeping and dreams. 

Dean reaches out and steadies him. “Easy,” he murmurs. “You hungry?”

Sam nods, and while he drinks the soup Dean brings him (tomato, no rice, because Sam hates it with rice), Dean tells him what happened, explaining how they’d ended up at the abandoned farmhouse and how Charlie and Kevin and Castiel had found them. Even though it had felt like years had passed while he’d wandered the dream-forest, Sam’s still surprised when Dean tells him that he was unconscious for nearly a month, real time. But it explains a lot: how weak he still feels, how shaky his limbs are, how much weight he’s lost. It even explains why he keeps coughing so much; he’d developed aspiration pneumonia while he was out, “From breathing in liquid or something, you know, when I’d try to get you to drink,” Dean explains, unnecessarily. 

“Why didn’t Cas heal that too?” Sam asks, stifling a yawn. He’s already tired, and he’s barely been awake for an hour. 

“Because…” Dean hesitates, then says, “Because Cas is human now. Metatron took his grace.” He gives Sam what has to be a short version of what happened, merely saying that the trials Cas went through were actually to close Heaven. So that was why they’d seen angels falling, Sam realizes, remembering how the sky outside the church had filled with streaking fire.

“Then how did he heal me?” he asks when Dean is done.

Dean sighs. “He didn’t. Well, technically he did, but he had help. An angel named Ezekiel.”

Sam’s nearly asleep by the time Dean finishes explaining that one. “I can’t believe it,” he mumbles, losing the fight to keep his eyes open. “What happened to his vessel? The,” he yawns, “the original one?”

“He was unconscious when Zeke vacated,” Dean replies, and Sam wants to laugh at that. It’s just like Dean to nickname this one too. “Charlie dropped him off at some hospital on her way here, I think, I’m not really sure.” He strokes Sam’s hair back. “I was more worried about you, you giant dork.”

Sam leans into his touch, barely able to speak now. “I guess I’m grateful he did it, but it was… so stupid…” 

When he wakes up again, the room is dark and silent. “Dean?” Sam mumbles, sitting up, ignoring the pounding in his head. 

There’s no answer.

He reaches for the bedside lamp, knocking it over as he fumbles for the switch. It hits the floor with a crash, and Sam jumps, his heart starting to race. He’s breathing too fast now, though he tries to control it. “Dean?” he whispers again. 

No answer.

_He’s alone._

For a second, he sees the forest again, sees the stark lines of the branches and the featureless blue of the sky. No, he thinks, and rolls out of the bed, fighting the covers that seem to be grabbing onto him like vines. His legs buckle when his feet hit the floor, and he falls with a gasp, pain jolting through him. “Dean,” he pants, trying to calm the panic rising in him. He’s not in the forest; he’s awake in his room; Dean’s just stepped out. He’s not alone. He’s not alone.

He can just make out a line of light several feet in front of him, hazy and indistinct, and he thrashes his way toward it, crawling over the cold floor when his legs refuse to support him. The tiny part of his brain that can still think rationally identifies it as the gap between the door and the floor, and he reaches out, stretching up for the doorknob, his panic so bad that now that his entire body is shaking.

The door swings open, and light floods the room from the hallway, momentarily blinding him. “Sammy?” he hears Dean say, alarm evident in his voice, and the next second he feels Dean’s arms go around him, pulling him up to his feet and then hugging him close. Sam gasps for air and clutches at Dean’s shirt, willing himself to calm down. Dean’s here. Dean’s here, and he’s fine. 

“Shit, Sammy,” Dean rasps, stroking his hair. “What the hell? What’s wrong?”

“I was alone,” Sam manages.

Dean swears again and walks him over the bed. Sam lets him, too spent to protest. He doesn’t want to sleep, doesn’t want to risk waking up alone again, but his head feels light and he can’t keep his eyes open. “Dean,” he mumbles as Dean tucks the covers back around him, wanting to ask him to stay but too drained to shape the words. He has a dim impression of Castiel coming in then, of Castiel’s — no, Ezekiel’s, right now — hand touching him on the forehead.

When he wakes up again, Dean’s in the bed with him, asleep, his arm thrown loosely over Sam’s waist and his face smushed into Sam’s shoulder. He’s warm against Sam’s side, solid and reassuring, and Sam closes his eyes again and breathes him in. 

Dean’s there every time he wakes up after that.

He spends the next several days drifting in and out of sleep, only waking up long enough to eat, use the bathroom, make a few circuits of his room to try to build his strength up, and to ask Dean more about what happened. They have a deal, the two of them: Sam asks questions, and Dean answers them. Simple, sure, but it works better than when Dean tries to explain without prompting, Sam’s realized; his brother has an easier time finding the words if Sam’s the one providing the direction. By the time Sam feels well enough to actually try leaving his room, he’s pretty sure they’ve covered almost everything that’s happened since the angels fell.

Or he was, until Jody Mills calls.

Sam grabs Dean’s hand before he’s even put his phone back in his pocket. “The gates of Hell are closed?” he repeats, his eyes searching Dean’s face. He’d known Abaddon was still on Earth, that Crowley had gone missing, but it’s the first he’s heard of this. Of course, he hadn’t asked, either; he’d just assumed that they were still open. He’d stopped the Trials, after all. “It worked?”

“It worked,” Dean confirms, not quite looking at him.

Sam leans back against his pillow. He thinks again of the dream-forest, of the vast sameness of it, of the pain and the blood and the lingering fear of being that utterly alone again. Then he thinks of why he’d been willing to die during the Trials in the first place, and he knows that it was a small price to pay. “It was worth it,” he says out loud.

Dean shakes his head, hard, a haunted expression in his eyes. “Nothing is worth that.” He tucks his phone in his pocket, not quite meeting Sam’s gaze. “You good if I call Cas and Zeke in now?”

Sam pushes himself to his feet. He’s not going to argue with Dean, not about this, but he still has one more question. “How do you know it worked?” 

Dean’s shoulders tense. “I…” He turns away. “Don’t ask me that, Sammy. Not yet. Please.”

Sam wants to press. There’s something Dean hasn’t told him yet, something big, something about what happened during that month in the farmhouse. But Dean’s answered all of his questions so far, and at least he isn’t trying to lie or evade him. “Okay,” he says finally. “But promise you’ll tell me sometime.”

Dean nods, relieved. “Promise.”

After that, Sam officially declares an end to his hermit-like existence and insists on leaving his room. To his surprise, Dean doesn’t really argue. “I’ll go make us some lunch,” he says. “Charlie’s in the library, I think.”

Sam finds her sitting at one of the tables, surrounded by three open laptops and as many empty mugs. “Sam!” she exclaims when he shuffles in, jumping up to hug him. “How are you? I’ve barely seen you since we got here, you’re always asleep.”

“I’m good,” Sam tells her, hugging her back. “Hungry, actually.”

“Want some tea?” she asks after they’ve both sat down. She pushes a mug toward him. Steam curls from the amber surface. “I haven’t drunk any yet, I swear.”

“Thanks,” Sam smiles, taking a sip. Having her and Kevin and Cas here with him and Dean is great, he thinks. Even if he hasn’t seen much of them — just Castiel-and-Ezekiel, really — it still calms him to know that they’re near. It’s a strange feeling, for someone so used to being on his own with only his brother. 

Dean comes in, a bag tucked up under one arm, a plate of potato skins in one hand, and a mug in the other. “Food,” he announces, setting it all down. The bag has chips, which Charlie snatches immediately, while the mug contains tomato soup. “No rice,” Dean says, giving him a wink as he presses it into Sam’s hands. Sam rolls his eyes; he’s getting a little sick of tomato soup. But he drinks it anyway, then attacks the plate of potato skins. Dean’s fried them up and sprinkled them with green onions (which are the only kind Sam will eat), salt, sour cream, and butter. They’re amazing, and Sam only pauses long enough to ask Charlie what she’s been up to before he stuffs one whole into his mouth.

“I’m setting up a web crawler,” Charlie tells them through a mouthful of chips. “It’ll search news sites and the like for certain keywords and phrases, looking for anything out of the ordinary, anything that might be either demonic or angelic activity, and alert us if it finds anything.”

“Has there been any angelic activity?” Sam asks.

Charlie shakes her head. “Only one possible lead. There’s been this preacher, you know, a televangelist type, only on the internet. He’s been putting out all these podcasts about saying yes to angels when they come calling. Castiel’s been trying to find out more, but…” She shrugs. “They’re lying low for now, I guess.”

“Abaddon’s out there, though,” Kevin says heavily. He comes into the library, the angel tablet tucked under one arm, and holds out his fist. “Hey, Sam. Good to see you up.”

Sam bumps his fist with his own. “Hey, man.” He turns to Charlie. “So, is that all? Nothing’s happening?”

Charlie shrugs. “Not really. Abaddon’s lying low too, not sure why, and we’ve got zilch on angels so far.” She grins at Sam. “So you haven’t really missed anything, Sleeping Beauty.”

“Yeah,” Kevin mutters, setting the angel tablet on the table and glaring at it. 

“You’ll get it,” Charlie says sympathetically, holding out her bag. “Chip?” 

Dean swallows, then says to Charlie, “We heard from our contact in Sioux Falls, might be something. Look for reports about people acting weird, like,” he glances at Sam, “they’ve changed personality and don’t give a fuck about anything or anyone anymore.”

“Like they’re soulless,” Sam murmurs.

“Got it,” Charlie says, her fingers flying over the keyboards. “So how are you doing, Sam?”

“Better,” Sam replies. “I was thinking of trying to go for a run—” at Dean’s look, he amends that to, “—a walk later.”

“Awesome, I’ll go with you,” Charlie says, taking one of the potato skins. “Kevin? You could use a break.”

Kevin shrugs. “Sure. Not like I’m getting anywhere with that thing.”

It becomes a kind of ritual; after lunch, Sam, Charlie, and Kevin all take a walk together. They stay inside at first, as Sam is still prone to getting tired quickly and Kevin is nervous of going outside at all, but after a couple of days they’re walking the streets and wandering the fields outside of the bunker. Sam’s worried at first about how he might react to the sight of trees, but the real world is so different, with the wind making shifting patterns of the leaves and the calls of birds and insects echoing through the air, that it’s nothing at all like being in the dream-forest. He’s glad, though, that Charlie and Kevin are with him.

Jody calls them back a couple days later, with grim news. “Abaddon’s making demons,” Dean tells their assembled group, though Castiel, notably, is missing. “They’re taking people’s souls and fucking with them, then turning them loose to make more demons.”

“So that’s what she’s been up to all this time,” Charlie whispers, face pale. “She’s building an army.”

“I knew it,” Kevin growls. “I knew something like this was up. It was too weird, how quiet it’s been.”

Charlie pulls her laptop close. “Okay, I found what they reported in Sioux Falls and updated the search parameters accordingly,” she says after a moment. She leans back in the chair, lacing her fingers together in front of her and stretching her arms out. “Now we just have to wait.”

“Hopefully it finds something soon,” Dean says, an odd tone in his voice.

Sam looks at him, raising an eyebrow when Dean glowers back, as if daring him to say something. Sam returns the glare, his face set, telling Dean without words that if anything’s happening out there, Dean’s not going alone to check it out, no matter what he thinks about the matter. Sam’s fine now, and he’s not losing Dean, not if he can help it. Dean holds his gaze for a moment before swallowing hard and looking away, which Sam hopes means Dean got the message. 

“Hopefully it will,” Sam says out loud.

“Hopefully we’re ready for it,” Kevin mutters.

***

It’s the middle of the night when Dean shakes Sam awake. “Is Cas back?” Sam mumbles, sleepy-eyed and yawning.

Dean shakes his head, reaches down to stroke Sam’s messy hair. “No, I’m just letting you know I’m gonna head out in a couple minutes.”

Sam sits bolt upright, eyes wide. “Why?” 

“Because,” Dean begins, and he can’t quite make himself look Sammy in the eye for this, “Charlie’s magic search whatever found something, and I want to check it out.”

“You want to check it out,” Sam repeats. “Alone?”

“Not alone,” Dean replies. He rubs his hand across his face in an irritated swipe. Figures Sam wouldn’t understand. “Charlie’s offered to come with me, and I think it’s a good idea. I kind of wanted Cas and Zeke to come, but they’re off doing, I don’t know, angel shit.”

The corners of Sam’s mouth twitch up, though Dean can tell he’s fighting it in order to stay mad.

“I just got you back, Sammy,” he says. The whole appealing-to-feelings shit usually works on Sam, so it’s worth a try here. “It was rough. It was really rough, watching you go through all of that, not being able to do anything to help. I just want to keep you safe for a little bit longer. Is that so bad?”

“Yes,” Sam shoots back, but Dean can tell that he’s softening. “Look, I understand. It was hard on me too, in a completely different way. But I just got you back too, and I don’t want you to leave anytime soon. So, since you’re hell-bent on going out and investigating, that means I’m coming with you.”

Dean knows that look on his face, the clenched jaw, the set of his brows, the raw force behind his eyes. Sam can be incredibly stubborn when he sets his mind to it, and this is a case where if Dean wins, it’s not going to be pretty.

So he gives in. “Fine,” he says, and goes to his pack to fish around in their supplies. The demon-killing knife has always been more of a weapon of choice for Sam, so it seems only fit to have Sam carry it. “There, now you have some decent protection. We can’t exorcise the bitches, but we sure as hell can kill as many as we can.”

Sam looks down at the knife in his hand for a moment, then sets it aside and pulls Dean into a big octopus hug. “Thanks,” he breathes.

“I still think it’s a bad idea,” Dean tells him, but Sam only laughs.

“Just think of it as continuing to keep a close eye on me,” Sam replies, not even sounding the least bit sorry.

That is a good point, and as much as Dean hates to admit it, he’s gotten used to sharing a bed with Sam again. Sam’s so much bigger than he was as a kid, but he’s still a freaking furnace, like the world’s biggest and best hot water bottle.

Charlie stops them on their way out, holds out a rattling box of ammo for Dean. “It’s not much,” she says, “but it might get you out of a bad spot. Devil’s trap bullets. Low caliber, should stay in the body, keep the demon immobilized until you can deal with it permanently. You know, I _can_ still come, if you want.”

“No, stay with Kevin. Someone has to keep an eye on him, make sure he eats and doesn’t have a seizure or something.” Dean gives her a hug. “We’ll stay safe,” he promises.

The two of them make their way to the Impala, and as soon as they get there, Dean pops the trunk and gets out the angel blades.

“I already have the knife,” Sam points out. “Those aren’t going to do much to Abaddon if she shows up.”

Dean shakes his head. “They’re not for her,” he replies. “Or even for the demons. They’re for the angels. When you went under, I prayed to them. When Cas was looking for us, he prayed. We’ve already had enough of those winged dicks butting into our party and refusing to clean up. Who knows what the feathered assholes are doing now? They could be following us already.”

“Then you’d better drive fast.”

The demon activity is limited to an area near the waterfront of wherever the fuck they are, an area that’s filled with creepy-looking old warehouses. It’s a good place to stay hidden from people in general, though the demons Sam and Dean have gone after before weren’t exactly shy. But this is different — like Jody said before, it’s kind of eerie how the demons have been hiding away from everything. The first major demon activity, and they can’t even narrow down the warehouses to just one.

It would be faster if they split up to search, but Dean doesn’t want to, and the last time Sam was alone Dean found him crawling on the floor, crying and freaking out, so it doesn’t actually sound like that great of a plan. Instead, they break in systematically, like Dad taught them a long time ago. Dean taking lead, Sam coming close behind as cover. They move smoothly together, seamlessly, like this is a practiced routine instead of what it is, their first time out of the gate in weeks and weeks.

They whittle their way through, narrowing the search down quickly as they come across actual warehouse workers doing actual warehouse work, plus no outward signs of demon activity. They’re about four or five warehouses in when they realize that this may be the one they’ve been looking for. It has busted and boarded-up windows all around the perimeter, and the remaining intact ones are coated in thick layers of grime. Stepping inside, even with the bright sunlight beating down, it’s dark and dim. The floor is a mess of debris and trash and glass, and it’s wet and smells strongly of mildew.

The only light that illuminates the area inside is the jars. There’re more than the dozens that Jody described in that storage room at the airport, almost a hundred. The lights inside the jars dance around, getting more active as Dean and Sam carefully step around them. They two of them get to work releasing them, and soon the air is dancing with white-gold lights. 

“You think they go back?” Sam asks, watching them. 

“Hope so,” Dean grunts, opening the last jar. “Damn, there’s a shit ton of these. That’s a hell of a lot of—”

“I thought I smelled Winchesters.”

Dean turns on a dime, whipping around and bringing his gun up to bear on the new arrival. She steps forward out of the shadows, until the glow of the freed souls lights her up.

Abaddon.

She reaches out, fingers hooked in a claw, and Dean’s gun goes flying. He pulls out the angel blade and charges at her, but she clenches her hand into a fist and he slams into an invisible force, gasping and choking. Sam comes at her from the side, but Dean’s eyes are watering too much to track his exact movements. He hears a clatter and a thump, the sound of a large body — Sam — hitting something solid.

“Sammy!” he tries to yell, but Abaddon’s hold is too tight.

“All this time,” she says, like she’s having a pleasant conversation over coffee, “the two of you have been an obnoxious pain in my ass. Granted, there have been a lot of pains in my ass right now, but you two make my number one list.”

Dean hears Sam groan and shift, like he’s getting to his feet again, but she makes an idle swatting motion and he cries out in pain. She ignores Sam for the most part, at least for now, and strides towards Dean in long, even steps. He can feel the vice-like grip getting tighter and tighter as she comes in close.

“After what the two of you did,” she continues, “I’ve had my hands full trying to keep what Hell there still is from breaking loose. There were a lot of demons who were loyal to Crowley, and a lot who are pissed that the gates of Hell are sealed shut. But don’t think for a moment that that means we’re down and out, boys. There’s more than one way to skin a soul.”

She grabs Dean bodily with her actual hand, nails piercing into his neck. His vision is already swimming in gray, but he has just enough strength to stick the angel blade deep in her gut. She hisses and draws back and drops him on the floor, howling and cursing at him. Dean only has enough time to try to catch his breath before she’s back on him, his blade in her hand. She presses it against his throat, and he can feel the pressure and give as it cuts deep.

“I’d love to let you two stick around to watch what I’m going to do to this world,” she hisses, “but seeing as that you’re already dead, I think I’ll have to let that one go.” Behind her, he can see Sam stagger to his feet, start to run in their direction. He wants to shout, to yell at him to forget him and get the hell out, but he can’t make a sound. 

“No!” Sam shouts.

“One down,” Abaddon sings.

Then everything goes suddenly and terribly black.

***

Sam shuts his eyes, trying to erase the image of Abaddon’s blade slicing across Dean’s throat. This isn’t happening, he tells himself. When he opens them again, he’ll be back at the bunker, having just had another nightmare. Dean will be there, hair mussed and sleepy-eyed, shaking his shoulder and telling him to wake up already, that he can’t sleep when Sam’s whimpering like a giant girl.

When he opens his eyes, Dean will be alive. Because Dean can’t be — he can’t be —

“And one to go,” a woman’s voice sneers, and Sam’s eyes fly open. He’s still in the warehouse, still standing frozen with horror, and Abaddon turns to him, dropping Dean to the ground at her feet. He lands with a thump, his face turned from Sam, his arms splayed. There’s blood dripping off the tip of the angel sword she took from him, and a pool of it is spreading on the floor, shining scarlet in the murky light, so bright that it looks fake. Dean’s blood. 

“Dean,” Sam whispers. Dean’s fine, he tells himself. Dean won’t have let Abaddon kill him with his own angel blade. He’ll get up, and they’ll take care of her together, like they always do. But Dean isn’t getting up, isn’t turning his head or pushing himself up off the floor or even breathing. “Dean, come on, get up!” he begs, breathless. 

Abaddon laughs. “Nice try,” she smiles, stepping over Dean’s body, like he’s nothing, like he’s just trash at her feet. Her heels make little splashes in his blood, and when she steps on one of his hands, Dean doesn’t react, doesn’t make a sound or even twitch. 

Sam stops breathing entirely. His vision dips, spots appearing on the edges, and this isn’t a nightmare. This is happening. Abaddon is here in front of him, one angel blade in her hand, the other across the room, too far for him to reach.

And Dean is — Dean is —

“Don’t worry, Sam,” Abaddon purrs, reaching out to trail her blood-red nails down the side of Sam’s face. “You’ll be joining him soon enough. But first...” Her fingers contract, piercing her nails into his skin, spilling blood down his face and into his mouth. He can taste it, coppery and hot, and she’s smiling at him, actually _smiling_. She leans in, lifting the bloodied blade and setting it against his throat, and whispers, “First, I’m going to watch you burn.” 

It won’t kill her, Sam knows. It probably won’t even hurt her for long. One way or another, he’s about to die, just like Dean, and he doesn’t even really care anymore. But he’s not going down without a fight. He’s not letting her kill his brother and not even feel a little pain for it. 

He pulls the demon knife from his belt and stabs it into her side.

Abaddon screams, her nails ripping down his face, the blade biting into his neck as she shoves him away. Pain sears across his throat, and he stumbles, skidding in the blood, clutching at the wound. Hot liquid pumps out over his fingers, soaking his hands, pouring down his front. His head spins, and he falls, sliding across the floor to bump into Dean’s body. “Dean,” he gags, trying to speak, reaching out red-gloved hands to paw at Dean’s face. Dean’s eyes are open, he sees, still open, but a cloudy film is obscuring the green, making them dull. Lifeless.

Tears spill down Sam’s cheeks, mingling with the blood. Dean’s face is utterly slack, the skin printed with red smears, some from Sam’s fingers, some of his own. Sam cradles it, not caring that his own throat is flapping open, that his own blood is drenching them both. Everything looks clouded now, misty almost, except for the red. The red is still bright, and it’s covering everything. Everything.

“No!” he hears Abaddon scream, but it’s distant, far away. Unimportant. 

Sam tumbles forward, wheezing, and lays his cheek against Dean’s. Dean’s cold, sticky with blood, and Sam closes his eyes. He feels numb now, as if he’s been shrouded in cotton, detached from everything except the curve of Dean’s cheek under his. Even the pain in his throat is gone. He tries to hug Dean, tries to pull him close before the end, but his arms won’t respond, and he can’t breathe. He can’t breathe.

“Not yet, you pathetic little bitch!” Abaddon’s voice snarls, but it’s fading. Everything is fading, dwindling to a tiny point, and then everything

is 

gone.

Then Sam breathes.

Gasping, he jerks upright. His hair is over his face, wet and heavy, and he pushes it aside with trembling hands. He’s moving, he realizes, blinking his eyes open. At first his vision is blurry, too jumbled for him to make sense of anything, but then it begins to clear. They’re still in the warehouse, but it’s darker now, all the bottles gone and the lights shut off. They’re still on the floor, still surrounded by blood, darker and tacky now, half-dried.

And Dean is breathing.

“Dean,” Sam chokes, able to speak again, able to breathe and to think and to move. He grabs for his brother, noting dimly that his hands are covered with dried blood, cracking off in little flakes as they grasp Dean’s shoulders and pull him up. Dean coughs under his hands, his whole body racking; his face is a horror show of smeared and dried blood, but it’s not slack anymore, and his eyes are clear again, their usual familiar, beautiful green.

“Sam?” Dean rasps, blinking those eyes at him. He reaches up, brushes his fingers against Sam’s cheek. “Jesus, Sammy, you’re covered in—”

Sam hugs him, pulling him against his chest and breathing him in, reveling in the warmth of his skin, in the movement of his chest and the soft tickle of air against Sam’s neck as he breathes. With one hand, he touches Dean just under the chin, stroking the unblemished skin, feeling the pulse of Dean’s heart beating under his fingers. There isn’t even a raised mark, where she sliced him. “Dean,” he mumbles, hugging Dean so tightly that Dean lets out a squeak. 

“Can’t breathe!” he gasps. “Dude, you’re like a freaking octopus!”

Sam loosens his grip, but he doesn’t let go. He lays his cheek against Dean’s again, ignoring the stickiness, and closes his eyes. The stink of blood is making him nauseated, but he can’t bring himself to move, to let go of his brother, quite yet. 

“Hey. Hey, Sammy,” Dean murmurs, his arms looping around Sam’s waist and hugging him close. “What happened? I remember… Abaddon was here, and she grabbed my angel blade, and then…”

“She killed you,” Sam whispers, barely able to get the words out. “And then she killed me.”

Dean stiffens. “She… are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” His head is pounding at the memory, of seeing Dean so motionless, of his lifeless eyes… He never wants to see that again, never wants to have to hold Dean’s cold body and know he’s failed. He’s done it too many times already. “She cut both our throats, that’s why—” He has to stop and breathe, to push back the tears threatening to spill over. “That’s why there’s so much blood.”

Dean goes still, taking it in. “Then why,” he asks finally, voice quiet, “the _hell_ are we still alive?”

“Alive again, I think.” Sam’s head is spinning. “Like before.”

“You mean,” Dean frowns, “like when we couldn’t die years ago, when the angels wouldn’t let us?”

“Yeah, but…” Sam thinks about what little Dean has told him about the last couple of months. “But recently too. I couldn’t die either, after the third Trial, right? You said I got stabbed with an angel blade, even.” An image comes back to him then, of a cabin in the woods, and flames in a fireplace.

And of Death, extending a hand toward him.

“Yeah.” Dean’s quiet for a long moment, his body shuddering in Sam’s arms. Then he shakes his head, hard. “We can figure this shit out later,” he grunts. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here before she comes back.”

“She won’t,” Sam says, reluctant to let go. But the smell of blood is threatening to overwhelm him, and Dean’s right. They have to get out of here.

They help each other to their feet, slipping and sliding in the blood, their boots sticking to the floor and sucking with every step until they’re finally clear of it. Sam’s hair is thoroughly saturated, stiff where it’s partially dried, and for the first time in his life he wants to cut it all off, to hack at it until there’s nothing left. He keeps raking it back from his face, hating the drag of his fingers through it, hating the tiny showers of dried blood that fall every time. 

“Everything’s gone,” Dean mutters as they steal through the warehouse toward the exit. It’s not just the absence of the bottles or the lack of demon flunkies tending them, either; the warehouse feels empty now, like everything touched by the demonic presence has fled. 

“She wouldn’t have wanted anyone who came looking for us to find anything,” Sam pants, resisting the urge to tear at his hair. He rubs furiously at his hands instead, trying to peel the blood off. He’s probably scratching them bloody, but he doesn’t care. He remembers what she said to him, right before he stabbed her and got himself killed. “I’m surprised she didn’t burn our bodies, actually.”

“Who says she didn’t?” Dean mutters darkly. He grabs the door, yanking it aside. “She’d better not have touched my baby.”

But the Impala’s still where they left her, completely untouched. Even Abaddon couldn’t do anything through all the traps and spells and protections they’ve laid on her, Sam thinks, grateful. He reaches out, to lay his hand on her familiar smooth surface, but draws it back at the last moment. His hands are still red-brown, itchy under their coating of blood, and he doesn’t want to touch her like this.

Dean fumbles at the keys still in his pocket, unlocking the trunk and lifting it with the tips of his fingers. His hands aren’t as bad as Sam’s, only streaked instead of soaked, and he manages it without marring her surface at all. He tosses Sam a clean towel and asks, “Change here or change at a motel?” 

“Here,” Sam says immediately. They have to get out of here, yes, but he isn’t sure he can take being in those clothes any longer, especially not if he has to sit down. They’re stiff now, so thick with blood that he’s having trouble bending his arms and knees, and the smell has barely faded, even outside and away from the pool they’d left behind.

“Guess she didn’t burn us,” Dean mutters, making a face as he tries to pull his shirt off. He glances at Sam and tries to joke, “Too bad, this shit would’ve burned off if she had. I think.”

Sam hitches in a breath. “Don’t. Please.”

They help each other strip, piling their clothes against the brick wall in a stinking heap. “Should we burn ‘em?” Dean asks, and at Sam’s fervent nod, he retrieves the lighter fluid and soaks them, then strikes a match.

Sam watches the flames, rubbing his hands clean with the towel and shivering as the air touches him. His stomach turns as he realizes that his skin is still discolored where his clothes had been covering him, and he drops the towel he’d been using on the flames, shuddering. He doesn’t want to put anything else on, doesn’t want to mark anything else of his with what just happened, but they need to leave and he can’t just get in the car and into a motel naked. He settles for pulling on a ratty t-shirt with holes in the armpits and a pair of sweatpants that are too short for him. He’ll burn them too, he tells himself, once he’s clean again.

When the fire’s died, he wraps a clean towel around his head and gingerly gets in the Impala. Dean slides in next to him, and they just stare at each other for a long moment. Dean swallows hard and reaches out, touching the space between Sam’s collarbones, where the stain of blood is the worst. “I’m sorry, Sammy,” he says, quiet. “You think it’s the same deal as before?”

Sam closes his eyes, breathing hard. He wants to lean into Dean’s touch, wants to hold him close and listen to his heart beating, reassure himself that they’re both alive. But his hands are still itching, and the towel is heavy on his head, and he’s going to scream if he doesn’t shower the blood and the mess and the memory off soon. Everything else can wait.

“Let’s just go,” he says.

Dean drives them to a motel maybe ten minutes away and goes inside to check them in, after rubbing his face more or less clean on the last of their towels. Sam waits in the Impala, keeping his head down and his hands in his lap, forcing himself not to pull at his hair or scratch at the caked blood in the lines of his hands. When Dean finally comes back, a set of keys swinging from one hand, he practically sobs with relief. 

The moment they’re in the room Dean practically strips Sam himself and pushes him into the shower. “Stay in there as long as you want,” he orders. “I’ll go get your shampoo and conditioner and all that crap you need.”

Sam nods and twists the knobs on the shower until the water is as hot as it will go. Then he gets in, hissing as the scalding stream hits his skin. But it feels good too, like it’s washing more than just the dried blood away. He closes his eyes and puts his head under it, gagging as the hot tang of blood fills his nostrils, but he can feel his hair lightening under the onslaught of the water, can feel the blood washing out even without shampoo. Still, when Dean comes in with it, he lathers up and rinses both hair and body four times before he finally shuts the water off.

His skin’s flushed red when he gets out, but he feels better. “Your turn,” he calls, wrapping one of the motel’s towels around his dripping hair and another around his waist.

While Dean showers, Sam gathers the clothes they’d worn in the Impala on the way here and stuffs them into a bag, ties it off until it’s as sealed as he can make it, then stashes it in the Impala’s trunk. They’ll deal with it later.

After they’re both dressed again, they crowd onto the bed farthest from the door, Sam’s by default, and sit with their backs against the headboards and their thighs and shoulders pressed together. “Okay,” Dean says after they’re settled. “Let’s figure this shit out. So the last time, it was because of angels, right?” He makes a face. “They wanted us to say yes, so they wouldn’t let us die. But it can’t be angels now, they’re all stuck on Earth.”

“Not exactly,” Sam says, remembering. “The angels just sent us back after we got to Heaven, didn’t they? It was Lucifer, I think. He was controlling Death. Didn’t Death say...” He trails off, another memory coming to him. Death, standing in the cabin in the dream-forest, with fury in his eyes.

_“I have been — fettered.”_

“You think Death’s being controlled now?” Dean frowns.

“I know it,” Sam says, and tells Dean everything he can remember from the cabin. He’s told him some of it before, but he hadn’t gone into much detail, mostly because he hadn’t been able to remember much of it. The weeks wandering the forest had blotted out most of his memory of the cabin and his talk with Death. But he also hadn’t wanted to tell Dean how close he had been to going with Death, that he’d actually reached for Death’s hand. But he tells him now, keeping his eyes on his now-clean hands as he talks, telling Dean how he hadn’t been able to take it, and what Death had said before vanishing.

Dean’s eyes are wet when he finishes. “Christ,” he mutters, rubbing hard at them. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry, Sammy.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Sam whispers. “I didn’t want to leave you, but… I just…”

Dean kind of half-laughs. “Don’t even. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll kick your ass if you decide to die me on again, but if you’d—” He breaks off, breathing hard, and rakes his hands through his wet hair. “Forget it.”

“I won’t, you know,” Sam says, watching him, wondering what he’d been about to say. “I’m not leaving you again, not if I can help it. And if you die on me,” he adds, his voice catching in his throat, “I’ll kick your ass harder, you hear me?”

Dean nods slowly, some of the tension in his face easing. “Not much of a chance of that right now,” he mutters, but there’s a brightness in his eyes that wasn’t there a moment ago. “Okay, so Death’s being controlled, which means...?”

_“You’ll have to take it up with… another.”_

“Metatron,” Sam says. 

Dean knocks his head back against the wall, frowning. “But why? Why would Metatron care if we live or not?”

“I don’t know,” Sam says, thinking hard. “But the last time someone controlled Death, he wasn’t very happy about it. He even helped us so that Lucifer would fall, remember? He gave us his ring.” He takes a deep breath, then meets Dean’s eyes. “I’ll bet he’s even more pissed this time.”

Dean sits up straight.

“You think?” he starts, then swallows hard. “You think we should?”

Sam meets his eyes and nods. “Let’s talk to Death.”


	6. CHAPTER FIVE

  
  
_I'm not the devil but I won't be your hero_  


Cas and Zeke aren’t there when Dean and Sam make it back to the bunker the next morning. Their plan isn’t even fully sketched out yet, and Dean’s already shaking a bit. Death is a fucking cold bastard, it’s part of the deal, and he can also be scary as shit when he wants to be. He’s going to be pissed, and Dean doesn’t really want to see Death pissed again. Some angelic backup would be nice, but when Dean tries to call, the phone goes directly to voicemail.

“Cas,” Dean says, “me and Sammy have a plan. Since you’re MIA again, I’ll let you know how it went. Wish you were here instead. We could use all the mojo we can get.” He ends the call and looks over at Sam, who’s crossed paths with Kevin. They talk in low voices for a moment, and then Kevin vanishes back into his room.

“What’s up?” Charlie asks, coming up next to him.

Dean impulsively gives her a hug, holds her tighter than he should until she gasps and says something about breathing and he has to let her go again. He outlines their plan, rough and stupid as it is, and waits for her to call him a goddamned idiot.

She does. “You’re an idiot,” she says. “Both of you. That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.”

Sam comes up behind her, and his words are a soft murmur. “It’s the only lead we have right now.” He’s still pale, still shaky from before, and though some sleep and a shower did him a world of good, his eyes are hollow and raw and red. Charlie just looks at him and softens a bit. Sammy looking like crap has always had that effect on people.

“Okay, fine,” she says, crossing her arms and glaring at them. “But if you die, I’m going to kill you.”

She hugs them both before leaving, saying something about making tea and staying out of their way. “She’s right, you know,” Dean says as they slip away through the halls and into Sam’s room. “This is a fucking stupid plan.”

“I know,” Sam says, and locks the door. He turns to face Dean, immediately going all business. “There’s a few different ways we can do this. First of all, do you still have that spell to summon him?”

Which sounds like a fantastic idea, but— “He threatened to take us both if we tried that again.” Sure, it doesn’t seem to be the threat it used to be, but Death is still every bit as terrifying as he was when he actually had that ability. “But yeah, I still have it. It takes hours of prep time and some crazy-ass ingredients. You sure the Men of Letters have all that shit?”

Sam nods. “Yeah. Okay. So, we’ll just have to start looking through the archives, see what we can find and what we can swap out—”

Unless they’re completely overthinking this. “There’s an easier way,” Dean realizes. Summoning Death with a spell is just likely to get them both killed as soon as they can die again. But since they can’t die...

“What do you mean?” Sam asks, and when Dean just looks at him, his brows shoot up and his eyes go wide. “You can’t mean it.”

He does. As much as it pains him to think about it, killing themselves is a good way to call Death without pissing him off. Too much, anyway. “It’s not something I like,” Dean tells Sam. “This is a shitty solution to a shitty problem.”

Sam nods. “Yeah,” he says, “it is.” He sits down on the edge of his bed, balances his elbows on his knees and looks up at Dean. “What’s the plan?”

Dean hesitates. “Nothing messy,” he says. “Fastest way would be to blow our brains out, but I don’t want to have to clean that up. Or have Charlie and Kevin come to investigate and find us like that.”

Sam nods. “We could slit our wrists,” he says. “Sure, there’s blood, but blood isn’t that hard to clean up.” A shiver goes through him, and he adds, “We could contain it, just bleed in the shower or a bowl or something.”

“Or we could try poison?” Dean wonders. “Nah, we’d probably just puke everywhere, definitely don’t want to deal with that.”

“What about asphyxiation?” Sam asks. “You know, smothering ourselves?”

Dean’s heart lurches, and he snaps out, “ _No_ ,” with such force that Sam jumps. “No,” Dean says again, calmer this time, trying to erase the image of Sam going still under the pillow from his mind. “No, I’m thinking we could do the wrist thing, maybe into the sink?”

“Or,” Death says, suddenly standing there next to them, “you could not do any of those, and I wouldn’t have to endure yet another of your resurrections. They’re irritating, like a mosquito buzzing in the ear.” He taps his cane, looks back and forth expectantly while they gape at him. Death, in person, is even creepier than Dean remembers.

Sam gets his shit together first, clears his throat and starts. “Metatron’s the one who has you tied up,” he states, not even making it a question.

Death shakes his head. “Children,” he mutters to himself. “The both of you, such unruly children. I knew you were slow, that’s to be expected from humans, but this...” He trails off, clicking his tongue in admonishment. “Yes, that over-inflated scribe with delusions of grandeur, he’s the one who sealed Heaven and is making a mess along the veil. Very untidy, very much like him.”

Dean finds his tongue and blurts out, “What do you want us to do about it?”

Death glances in his direction and exhales ever so slightly. “I expect nothing from you, Dean. You’ve already shown yourself to be just as messy as Metatron.” He looks at Sam, and Dean has to resist the urge to get between that look and his brother. “But you, Sam…” He plucks a folded handkerchief from a pocket on the inside of his suit jacket, unwraps an item and then tosses it to Sam without looking. Sam catches it midair, looking surprised that he even managed it.

“Your ring?” Sam says, blinking at Death. “But what—”

“I offer a bargain, Sam Winchester,” Death says. “Metatron is not your only problem, am I correct?”

Sam glances at Dean, his brows drawn together in bewilderment. But Dean gets it. “Abaddon,” he says. 

“The Knight of Hell is the one responsible for your latest deaths, and for many more besides,” Death replies, a frown deepening the lines on his face. “Between her mass slaughters and Metatron’s closing of Heaven, it’s a wonder the veil hasn’t been torn entirely asunder. And I, unfortunately, am powerless to stop it, just as I am powerless to take you two.”

“So what’s this deal, then?” Dean demands.

“Must I spell out everything?” Death shakes his head again, as if he can’t believe how stupid the two of them are. “The deal is this: Kill Metatron, open Heaven again, and I will remove Abaddon from the Earth for you.” 

It’s both better than they could have hoped, and worse than he’d imagined. “What happens if we do it?” Dean asks. “Do you kill us, then?”

“You’ve already been killed, several times over,” Death returns. “I will merely take you, as promised.”

“And the ring?” Sam asks. “Why the ring?”

“You may find the ring useful,” Death replies. “But take care with it. I expect you to return it, should you manage your end.” He looks at both of them, his eyebrows raised. “Do we have a bargain, then?”

Sam glances at Dean, who shrugs but nods. It’s not like they have any hope of taking out Abaddon without this deal. Much as he wants to shut this whole thing down, forget they ever had the idiotic idea to ask Death for help, it’s their only option. They're the ones who closed Hell, and they're the ones who are going to have to clean up the mess.

“We do,” Sam says, closing his hand around the ring. “Thank you.”

Death turns to face him fully, and Sam shrinks back a little from the force of it. Dean’s been there too, the full attention of Death weighing directly on you is a heavy feeling.

“Try to keep your deaths to a minimum,” he tells Sam. “A mercy killing is one thing, but the messy ones are quite inconvenient.”

“Mercy killing?” Sam repeats.

“No,” Dean says, stepping forward, wanting to grab Death by the shoulder and pull him away before he can say anything more. “Please, don’t—”

“When your brother tried to end your suffering,” Death explains, like this is nothing, like this isn’t a shitty thing to do, like he doesn’t know what he’s doing by saying these things to Sam. “It really is a shame it didn’t work, but I suppose this means you get a chance to clean up the mess.”

Sam blinks, once, and Dean sees it when he puts the pieces together, when he adds two and two and gets fucking four. “That’s it?” he breathes, looking at Dean. “That’s what you’ve been hiding? I thought maybe you’d tried to make a deal, but…” 

“Oh, he tried that too,” Death says, offhand, like he isn’t twisting the goddamned knife. “But Hell’s closed. No more deals.”

He takes a step back from them, glances between them, and smiles that cold and chilling smile. 

“Next time I see the two of you, I’ll fulfill that promise.”

Then he’s gone.

***

His right hand is clenched tight, the object inside of it biting into his palm. Slowly, Sam opens his fist and stares down at the ring in his palm, cool despite the heat of his skin. It’s Death’s ring there in his hand, the square white stone gleaming dully in the light, and if he has Death’s ring, then everything that just happened was real. Everything he heard was real.

_Dean tried to kill him._

Sam closes his hand around the ring again, his head spinning as he tries to make sense of everything. So this is what Dean couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell him. Sam had expected something like the attempt at a crossroads deal, but he never, _never_ , would have thought it was something like this.

“Sam?” Dean’s voice is raw, almost hollow. Sam blinks and turns to look him, a confusing mess of emotions swirling through him. There’s anger, yes, but mostly at the fact that Dean tried to make another deal first, ignoring everything the two of them have had to learn the hard way. There’s also shock, of course, at knowing just how far Dean had gone, and annoyance that Dean had been, once again, planning to keep it from him, probably forever.

But mostly, there’s an almost overwhelming wave of sympathy for what Dean must have gone through, watching Sam suffer. The dream-forest had been so awful that he hadn’t ever really considered what it must have been like for Dean, having to witness every moment of pain Sam felt there and unable to do anything to ease it. It must have been torture for him, Sam realizes, hot tears pricking at his eyes. It must have killed Dean, not knowing what was wrong, not knowing if Sam would die from starvation or pneumonia or something else, not knowing if help would ever come. 

“Sam?” Dean asks again, his voice barely above a whisper. “Sammy, come on, man.”

No, Sam thinks, staring at his brother, loving him so much that he’s momentarily rendered speechless. Dean didn’t try to kill him.

Dean tried to save him. 

He opens his hand again, plucks the ring from it, and sets it on the shelf next to the bed. Dean lets out his breath in a rush, his eyes tracking Sam’s hand. “So you do have it,” he says, voice shaking almost imperceptibly. But Sam knows him too well to be fooled, no matter how hard Dean’s trying to hide it. “Don’t know what it’s gonna do for us. It’s not like we can kill Metatron with it, it doesn’t work like that. Or it didn’t when I had it. It just worked on regular people.” He’s babbling now, not quite meeting Sam’s eyes, his hands twisting in his lap. “It won’t even help take out demons. Well, it might drop their meatsuits, but—”

“Dean,” Sam says.

Dean closes his mouth with an audible snap. He’s breathing hard, his shoulders shaking, and Sam loves him so damned much right now. He loves Dean for being his brother, for sticking with him this long, for loving him enough to put what Sam needed over what Dean wanted. He thinks about what he’d do in the same situation, and he isn’t sure he could do it, isn’t sure he could put Dean ahead of himself like that. He likes to think he would, that he could be that selfless, but he just doesn’t know. 

He hopes he never has to find out.

But he also know that this must be tearing Dean up. He knows how Dean is, especially when it comes to him and what Dean would see as his failure to protect him, and he doesn’t want Dean to hurt because of it. He doesn’t want Dean to hurt on his account, not anymore.

“Dean,” Sam says again, tentatively laying a hand on Dean’s arm. “About what Death said… I get it, man, you were just trying to look out for me—”

Dean throws his arm off with such fury that Sam nearly topples off the bed. “Don’t you even,” Dean seethes, his face livid. He jumps to his feet and whirls on Sam, his fists clenched. “Don’t you even say that, Sam, don’t you pretend that what I did was some noble bullshit. That was the worst, you understand me? Everything I’ve done, everything fucked up thing I’ve pulled, none of it even comes close to putting a pillow over my little brother’s face and holding it there till—” He breaks off and just shakes his head, his eyes glassy with unshed tears.

“Dean,” Sam whispers, feeling his own eyes burn in response. “I didn’t — I just meant that — I know you were trying to help me, Dean. I know how it bad it was for me in there, and—” Words fail him, and he tries to reach out again, tries to catch his brother’s hand, tries to fix this. But they’ve never been good at fixing things with words. “Please, Dean, it’s okay, it’s—”

“No it fucking isn’t!” Dean grabs him by the shoulders, shaking him, though not hard enough to hurt, Sam can’t help noticing. Even now, with self-hatred choking every word, Dean is being careful with him. “You just don’t get it, do you?” He shoves Sam away and turns his back to him, his shoulders heaving. “I tried to _kill you_ , Sammy. Nothing matters except that, _nothing_. It doesn’t fucking matter why. You don’t try to kill your family, Sam, you just _don’t_.”

Sam stares at his back, torn between concern and a sudden swell of irritation. Dean always does this, always acts like whatever he’s done is unforgivable, never mind the reasons. “Actually,” Sam says, getting to his own feet. “It does matter why you did it. It matters a lot.” He grabs Dean’s shoulders, turning him to face him, not sure if he’s going to yell at him or hug him. Dean just stares up at him, tears making wet tracks down his cheeks. “It matters to me,” Sam whispers. “God, Dean, can’t you see that? It _matters_ that you did it so I wouldn’t suffer. It _matters_ that you were trying to help me.” Sam drags in a breath, fighting tears himself. “It’s the only thing that matters.”

“No,” Dean mumbles, closing his eyes and turning his head away. “Don’t, Sam, just — I did it. I did it, and I’m always gonna have done it, and I’m always gonna have to remember doing it. So just _don’t_.” He’s crying for real now, tears falling thick and fast, and Sam forgets about trying to argue with him, forgets about trying to force him to see his point of view. It can wait; everything else can wait, if Dean is hurting this badly.

“Dean,” he whispers, wanting to hug him, unsure if Dean will even let him. He’s still got his hands on Dean’s shoulders, though, and so Sam slowly slides his hands around to his back, expecting Dean to throw him off any second. But Dean doesn’t fight him; Dean seems to go limp the moment Sam’s arms are around him, his head falling onto Sam’s shoulder, his weight dropping against Sam’s chest. Sam holds him close, resting his own cheek against Dean’s head and closing his eyes. “It’s okay,” he mumbles into Dean’s hair, his own tears spilling over, finally.

“No it’s not,” Dean mumbles back, his hands gripping Sam’s shirt.

They end up on the floor somehow, their legs tangled together and their arms still looped tightly around each other. Sam’s back is against the bed frame, the corner of it poking uncomfortably into his kidney, but he doesn’t even try to shift positions. Dean’s panting into his shirt, thick and snuffling, but he’s stopped crying, at least; Sam can tell that much. He’s just breathing, now, his hands pressing aimless little patterns into Sam’s back. 

Sam keeps expecting it to end, keeps expecting Dean to shove him away or Charlie to knock on the door or Castiel to appear in the room. It’s what happens, whenever they might have a quiet moment, after all. But no one appears, and neither of them says anything, and they don’t let go of each other. 

It’s Dean who breaks the silence, who says, his voice still thick and strange-sounding, “We should probably put that ring somewhere safe.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees.

“He must’ve given us the ring for a reason.”

“Yeah.”

Dean stirs then, lifting his head enough to look at Sam, his face only inches away. His eyes are red, puffy and shadowed underneath, and his face is pale, his freckles standing out stark against his skin, as if they’ve been drawn on with pencil. Sam draws in a sharp breath as their eyes meet and hold, as Dean’s lips part the slightest bit.

He’s beautiful.

“Maybe,” Dean says, his voice so low that Sam has to strain to make it out, “we should get the others.”

“Yeah,” Sam mumbles. He wants to say something else, something about how the other three rings of the horsemen are still hidden in Bobby’s old scrapyard, but the words die in his throat. He’s aware, suddenly, that they’re still entwined around each other, sharing each other’s warmth. Breathing each other’s air.

He moves his hand, touching Dean’s cheek with the tips of his fingers, tracing the curve of his jaw. Dean’s eyes half-close at the touch, a breath of air puffing out from between his lips, and suddenly Sam’s heart is beating so hard he can feel it. 

Before he can think about it, before he can talk himself out of it, Sam kisses him.

It’s nothing much, just a brush of his lips over Dean’s, but it’s like everything suddenly slots into place, like he has the answer to a question he didn’t even know he was asking. Their lips touch again, and everything seems so clear to him now. This is what they’ve really been dancing around, all these years. This is what he’s wanted without realizing it, why they’ve clung so hard to each other, but also why they’ve kept pushing each other away. 

They kiss again, and again, just brief presses of their lips before they break apart, breathing hard. Part of Sam wants to press further, but this is too new, too fragile, to risk, and he’s not sure it’s a good idea right now anyway. So he kisses Dean’s lips, his cheek, the line of his jaw, and then leans their foreheads together. “Dean,” he murmurs, cupping Dean’s face with his hands.

Their phones buzz.

Dean backs off, wincing a little as he unbends his legs, and grabs for his phone. Sam groans as he sits upright, his back twinging in protest at the movement, and fishes out his own cell. It was bound to happen, he thinks wryly. They never get to escape for long, the two of them.

“Jody?” Dean asks, his voice gruff, and Sam nods. She’s send it to both of them, he sees, opening the message.

 _Hypothetically,_ it reads, _what will happen if I fill the jar of a soul that’s gone demonic with holy water?_

“You answer,” Dean grunts, getting to his feet. Sam watches him, wanting to touch him, but keeping his hands to himself. “I’ll, uh. I’ll take care of the ring.”

Sam nods again and types out a quick response, telling Jody to try it and let them know what happens. By the time he’s hit send and returned his phone to his pocket, his bedroom door is open, and Dean’s already gone.

***

Kevin’s in the middle of translating a particularly tricky part of the demon tablet — not the angel tablet, because he’s had enough of skull-pounding headaches and failure for the moment, thanks — when Charlie pokes her head into his room. “Hey, do you know what Sam and Dean are doing?” she asks.

“Being idiots,” Kevin mutters underneath his breath. He sits back, massaging his temples. At least the demon tablet is easier to work with, he thinks sourly. He can actually figure it out pretty quickly most of the time, unlike the angel tablet, which is like the world’s worst cypher wrapped up in frustration wrapped up in a migraine. Still, he’ll welcome a break from it, especially if Charlie’s made tea. He stands up and stretches his aching limbs, then asks her, “Seriously, did they tell you their latest brilliant plan? Summoning Death so they can ask if there’s any way to kill Abaddon?”

“And Metatron too.” Charlie smiles crookedly. “Yeah, I heard about that. I meant, do you know if they’re doing it now? Because I don’t exactly want to go interrupt them if they’re in the middle of talking to freaking _Death_.”

“How would I know?” Kevin asks, waving a hand at the two tablets, sitting innocently on his desk, side-by-side. They don’t look like much when he’s not trying to read them, just hunks of uneven stone with random squiggles all over them. Sometimes he finds it hard to believe just how much knowledge — and how much power — the two of them really have. “I’ve been in here all day.”

“I keep telling you,” Charlie says, leaning against the doorframe and making a mock-scowling face at him, “you can work in the library with me, you know.”

Kevin sighs and pushes his hair off his forehead. It just flops back immediately. “I know, I know, it’s just — the angel tablet is really kicking my ass. Behind,” he corrects himself automatically, as his mother’s face briefly flickers in his mind’s eye, giving him a pointed look. God, he wishes she were here to give him that look in person. “It’s easier to work by myself. Relatively, anyway.”

Charlie tucks her hair behind her ears. “At least come have some tea with me. I think I’ll just wait till Sam and Dean come out of the abyss to talk to them, and I made a whole pot.”

“Heck yeah,” Kevin says, turning his back on the tablets. They can wait for a while, as far as he’s concerned. 

He sits across from her at her claimed table in the library, sipping his tea with both hands wrapped around the warm mug, breathing in the woodsy steam. Damn, he’d needed this. “Who taught you how to make tea?” he demands after refilling his mug.

Charlie’s smile falters, just a bit. “My mom,” she says finally. “We used to make tea and read books together.”

Kevin doesn’t need to ask her what happened to her mother. He knows that look, the tone in her voice, everything, because he’s felt it all himself. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, looking down at the china rim of his mug. His eyes are stinging, and not just because he has barely slept in days. “It sucks.”

“It does,” she says, and he looks up at her. She’s looking back at him with a mixture of sadness and sympathy, and she doesn’t need to say anything either. They understand each other perfectly.

They sit together for a while, drinking their tea in companionable silence and occasionally glancing at the doorway leading to the hall with Sam’s and Dean’s rooms in it. Both of them continue to fail to appear, and Kevin can feel a twinge of worry niggling at him. They’re fine, he tells himself. The two of them talk to Death all the time, from what he can figure, and are still kicking. Why should this time be any different?

Still, he thinks.

It’s _Death._

“So how’s it going, anyway?” Charlie asks him after they’ve both finished their second mugs of tea and raided the kitchen for some muffins to eat with the last half of the pot. Pre-packaged, of course. His mother would not approve. “Have you gotten anything at all?”

“Yeah, from the demon tablet,” Kevin mutters around a mouthful of blueberry and additives. “I’ve been trying to figure out if demons can be exorcised back to Hell, even though it’s closed.”

“And?”

“And, they can’t,” Kevin grouses. “Once Hell is closed, it’s closed.” He shoves the rest of the muffin in his mouth, where it proceeds to glue his jaws together for a few seconds, until he manages to swallow. He drinks another long draught of the tea, which is getting cool, and continues, “But at least I found out something. It’s better than that stupid angel tablet.”

“No luck at all?” Charlie asks.

Kevin snorts. “Technically, I can translate it. I’ve translated most of it, actually.”

“Oh?” Charlie sits up. “And the catch?”

Kevin makes a face. “All I can translate it into is some obscure form of cuneiform that I don’t even understand. It’s so old I’m not sure a record of this language even exists. Which doesn’t do any of us any damn good.” He snorts. “Some prophet I am.”

“Oh,” Charlie blinks, in the way that Kevin’s come to recognize as her thinking hard about something. “Maybe I could help?”

“I wish,” Kevin says mournfully. 

“No, really.” Charlie leans forward, a gleam in her eyes now. “I could build something, a kind of translation program, that compares it to existing language databases and decrypts it based on that. All language has patterns, after all.”

Kevin stares at her, the tiniest flicker of excitement flaring to life in his chest. After so many weeks of frustration and failure, after feeling like he’d lost almost everything for no reason, there might just be a solution. There might just be a way for him to make everything that’s gone wrong at least be worth it, in the end.

“Do you really think you can?” he demands, leaning forward, his tea momentarily forgotten.

“I really think there’s a chance,” she replies, grinning at him.

Next to them, her laptop gives a loud beep. “Is that—?” Kevin asks.

“It is,” she confirms. She bites her lip, her eyes scanning the screens.“Definitely demonic. Another potential soul factory, I think. Dammit, where are they?” She jumps to her feet, her hands wringing, looking like she’s getting ready for a good nervous pacing.

It’s ruined when Dean walks into the room. 

“Whoah,” he says when Charlie whirls on him, all flying red hair and frantic hand gestures. “What is it? Did you hear from Cas?”

“Haven’t seen him in days,” Kevin answers for her. “How’s _Death_? Have a good chat?”

Dean frowns at that, his eyes flashing with worry or annoyance or both. “Where is that winged bastard?” he mutters, raking his hands over his mussed hair and completely ignoring Kevin’s question. Not that Kevin’s surprised, given Dean’s history of actually explaining things. 

Besides, Dean looks freaking terrible, Kevin thinks, taking him in. His clothes are rumpled and disarrayed, and he’s washed out and pale except for a deep flush across both cheeks. All in all, he looks even more exhausted than Kevin feels. But he’s alive and talking, and he isn’t freaking out so Sam must be all right too. Kevin sighs with relief. He’ll just ask Sam what happened later, he decides.

“I don’t know about Cas,” Charlie says, practically vibrating, “But I’ve found something else.”

Kevin grabs another muffin, pours himself the rest of the tea, and gets up. Whatever Charlie’s found, whatever Sam and Dean are about to do about it, it won’t concern him. It never does. “I’m gonna go work on the tablet,” he announces after Charlie’s finished explaining everything to Dean, who looks even more exhausted. “Call me if you find out anything, okay?”

“I’ll work on setting up that program!” Charlie calls after him. There’s a pause, a murmur from Dean, and then she yells, “After I get back! I’m going with them this time, Dean wants backup!”

“Be careful!” he yells back. “Salt and holy water, and lots of it! They’re even more susceptible now!”

“Already in my bag!”

Trying not to let himself get too worried about her — she can take care of herself, and Sam and Dean will do their damnedest to make sure she’s all right too, he knows from experience — Kevin closes himself back in his room and sits down at the desk, staring down at the innocent-looking tablets in front of him and the pages of scrawled cuneiform next to the one on the right. “So, my old nemesis,” he says to the angel tablet, picking it up and running his fingertips over the grooves. “We meet again.”

Several grueling hours later, he sets it back down. His head is aching, his hand cramping from gripping the pencil, and he feels weak, his limbs too loose and his back too tight. His vision’s blurring, and his stomach is twisting itself in knots, either in protest from all the crappy muffins, or because he hasn’t actually eaten anything else in hours. All he wants is to throw himself down onto his bed and die.

But it’s done. It’s actually done, all of it. Written in cuneiform he can’t understand, sure, but with Charlie’s help?

They just might get somewhere, now.

Slowly, creakily, he stands up, stretching out his aching muscles. He feels faint, like the room is spinning. Definitely need to eat, he thinks. He gathers up the papers with his scrawled cuneiform, figuring he’ll drop them on Charlie’s laptop, and turns to stagger his way through the halls toward the kitchen.

His phone rings.

“Hey, Charlie,” he answers, guessing. There’s a chance it’s Sam or Dean, of course, but of the three of them, he’s pretty sure it’s Charlie who would actually think to call him. He likes Sam and Dean, he really does — he considers them family, now — but they’re not exactly good at the whole communication thing.

But the voice that answers him isn’t Charlie, or Dean or Sam, or even Castiel.

“Guess again,” the voice purrs. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it, Kevin?”

It’s Abaddon.

Kevin stops dead in the doorway, his fingers tightening on his phone so hard he almost expects it to shatter in his hand. The papers in his other hand rattle as he starts to shake. “What do you want?” he demands, a powerful surge of anger coursing through him. It’s accompanied by an equally powerful surge of terror.

_What’s happened to his friends?_

“It’s not what I want,” Abaddon replies, almost in a sing-song. “No no, Kevin. It’s what you want.”

“Cut the bullshit,” he tells her, and in his mind, his mother is nodding in approval. “How did you get my number?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” She’s enjoying this, the fiend. “But first things first. Your friends just killed some of the few minions I have left and set all the souls they’d worked so hard to gather for me free. The same friends I just killed a couple days ago, and yet, here they are again, still pissing me off and trying to delay the inevitable.”

_Killed?_

“What did you do to them?” His voice is shaking, dammit. 

“Nothing, yet,” Abaddon says. “None of my demons could stop them, and the only one who survived ran to me instead of going after them, the sniveling little piece of shit. It’s so hard to find good help these days, what with all my best demons still _locked in Hell_.” She hisses out the last few words, and Kevin can almost feel the phantom grasp of her nails on his throat. “But no matter,” she continues, her voice calm again. “You’re going to tell me where Sam and Dean are. Better yet, you’re going to send them right back to me, and I’ll be waiting.”

Kevin grits his teeth. He’s not going to give this monster anything. “And why would I do that?”

“Because,” Abaddon purrs, obviously savoring every word, “I have something you want. Something you’ll do anything to get back. And if you don’t send the Winchesters to me, well, I won’t have any use for it anymore. So think hard, Kevin, about what you’re going to do.”

There’s a muffled thump, a faint scuffling noise, and then another voice, hoarse and faint, says something in the background. “ _Kevin_ ,” it whispers, and his heart stops. Even over a phone line, even so quiet he can barely hear it, he still recognizes it instantly.

“Say hello to Mommy,” Abaddon sings.


	7. CHAPTER SIX

  
  
_this life, it feels like a prison_   


Dean pulls Charlie aside before they go in. “This can kill demons, and it still works,” he tells her, pressing the handle of the knife Sam usually carries into her hand. “If you can get a shot in, use it, but be careful, demons can be nasty bastards. Stick close to us and make sure you’re on guard at all times.”

“This isn’t my first hunt,” Charlie says dryly, though she does take the knife, weighing it in her palm. It’s wicked-looking, serrated and sharp, satisfyingly heavy in her hand. “Okay, it’s my first _demon_ hunt, but still.” 

“Just be careful,” Dean reiterates, gruff. “You’ve got holy water and salt, right?”

Please. Like she would even think of going on a hunt without either of those. Charlie looks up at him, ready to snark at him till he backs off, but the honest concern in his eyes brings her up short. “I do,” she says, reaching out with her free hand and laying it on Dean’s arm. “I’ll be fine, Dean. I know what to do.”

Dean nods a few times, though he still looks a little freaked out. “And—” He hesitates, glancing over his shoulder at Sam, who’s messing around with the holy oil and not paying them any attention. 

“Yeeees?” Charlie prompts

“Keep an eye on Sam,” Dean says in a low voice. “Cas hasn’t been around to heal him for a couple days, and…” He trails off. He’s still looking at Sam with such intensity that Charlie half-expects Sam’s hair to start smoking. The two of them have been weird with each other the whole trip, avoiding each other’s gazes and barely speaking at all. Charlie wonders if it has something to do with their talk with Death, and vows to make them talk about it on the way back.

“I’ll keep my eyes on both of you,” she tells him, and gives him a quick hug. He stiffens at first, but then hugs her back, murmuring something about being careful (again) that Charlie doesn’t bother listening to.

“Ready?” Sam asks from behind them, and Charlie lets go of Dean to go wrap her arms around him. He seems surprised, but he hugs her back, and she makes a mental note to hug Sam more. It’s like being hugged by a friendly bear, or possibly an orangutan, all warm arms and comfort.

“Ready,” she says after they break apart, and together, the three of them head inside. 

For all Dean’s talk, it’s almost ridiculously easy. There are only four demons on guard at the old concert hall, and Sam and Dean manage to get three of them trapped in a circle of salt before they even realize they’re there. Charlie sprays holy water on the fourth one, a woman of around forty by appearances, as she tries to jump them. She shrieks when it hits her in the face, clawing at her burning flesh, and turns tail and bolts from the hall entirely. “Huh,” Charlie says, watching the door slam shut behind her. Of all the responses she’d expected from her first demon fight, it certainly wasn’t that.

“Charlie, the knife!” Sam calls, and she turns back to the other three, who are snarling at them from their salt prison. 

“Are we going to try exorcism?” she asks, eyeing the bodies the demons are wearing. Two of them look like they’re barely out of their teens, and the other one is a tiny old woman. None of them looks like her idea of a demon, or wouldn’t if they weren’t currently sporting beetle-black eyes and literally hissing at them. Her heart twinges in her chest.

“We did,” Sam replies, sounding almost sad. “They just smoked out and then went right back in. There’s nowhere for them to go.”

“Just like Jody said,” Dean adds, voice rough. He shakes his head hard, but the gun he has trained on them doesn’t waver. The devil’s trap bullets, Charlie remembers. He nods at the stage behind the demons, which Charlie now notices is filled with various glass bottles, all glowing a bright white. Souls. “We’ve got to take them out.”

Charlie bites her lip, then nods.

It’s Dean who does it, though, while Charlie and Sam cover him with the guns. Charlie wants to thank him — she knows he’s doing it so she won’t have to — but she can’t find the words, and something about Dean’s expression makes her bite her tongue anyway. When it’s over, they open all the jars in silence, watching as the bright white lights within swirl out and streak away. Only one of the bottles has a darker soul in it, one stained a sickly sort of gray. Sam picks it up and tucks it into his pocket, and with that, they leave.

Charlie’s shaking by the time they make it to the Impala. She knows that they were demons, knows that they had to stop them from making a demon army, knows that they had probably all been responsible for dozens, if not hundreds, of human deaths, both directly and indirectly. And yet, it had been hard, watching the knife cut them open, watching the lights flash through their borrowed bodies before they’d crumpled. It wasn’t like the ghost, who’d already been dead, or the vampire, who’d been showing off its shark teeth and attempting to kill a teenage girl when she’d cut off its head. 

She’s about to ask them if it ever gets easier when two things happen. First, she realizes that she already knows the answer. She’s read the books. She’s seen what this life has done to them. ‘Easy’ is the last thing being a hunter is.

Second, her phone rings.

“Hey, Kevin,” she answers. “We did it, we—”

“Abaddon’s got her,” he interrupts her. His voice is shaking so badly she can barely understand him. But she can understand enough. “She’s got my mother, Charlie, she’s alive and Abaddon’s gonna freaking kill her if — if —” His voice fails.

“Oh god,” Charlie whispers. “Kevin, listen to me, we’re gonna figure this out, okay? Guys, it’s Kevin.” She switches her phone to speaker and leans over the back of the front seat, holding her phone between Sam and Dean. “Tell us what happened.”

Kevin does, his voice cracking as he tells them exactly what Abaddon said. Charlie’s mind whirls as she takes it all in. Abaddon already knows about their hit on the concert hall, thanks to the demon who escaped. Abaddon also apparently killed Sam and Dean at the warehouse before, or at least thinks she did. Charlie glances up at the two of them at that, but Dean refuses to look at her and Sam just shakes his head, his eyes big and sad and puppy-like. Charlie has a sneaking suspicion that whatever it is, it’s the real reason they contacted Death, and the reason they’ve been so damned closed-mouthed about it. 

She mouths, ‘ _You are so explaining that later,_ ’ to Sam, giving him her best you-will-obey-me face, and he sighs and nods.

“Crowley lied,” Kevin finishes, his voice thick with tears. “He never killed her, he had her locked up somewhere so he could use her against me, and now Abaddon’s found her.”

“And is using her too,” Dean says, grim.

“Where did Abaddon say she was?” Sam asks.

“Wichita,” Kevin croaks. “But you can’t go, that’s what Abaddon wants. I’ll go, she’s my mother, and it’s my fault—”

“Kevin, listen to me,” Dean growls. “You stay right there at the bunker, you hear me? Sam and I will go. We’re the ones who got you both into this.”

“She’s my mother!” Kevin protests. “I can’t just sit around waiting, I need to be there!”

“And because she’s your mother, we need to make sure you’re safe,” Dean shoots back. “She’ll never forgive any of us if you die while we try to rescue her. You know that, Kevin.”

Kevin’s silent for a long moment. 

“Kevin, please, stay there,” Charlie pleads. “I’ll make sure we get her, okay? Because I’m going too.” She glares at Sam and Dean, daring them to contradict her. “Abaddon didn’t say anything about me, did she? We might be able to use that.”

Dean starts to argue, but Charlie silences him with just a look. She’s going, and that’s all there is to it. Maybe she couldn’t save her own mother, but she can still save Kevin’s. “I promise I’ll bring her back,” she says fervently. “You have to be there when I do, Kevin.”

“Okay,” Kevin whispers.

They hang up a few minutes later, after Kevin’s given them the exact location Abaddon told him. Charlie finds it on her phone a couple seconds later. “It’s not that far, just a couple hours,” she says, showing the map to Dean, who’s in the driver’s seat. Then she tucks the phone away and slings an arm around both their necks. “Now,” she says, “tell me what the hell Abaddon meant by saying she’d killed you.”

They tell her, or Sam does, while Dean drives. Charlie leans back while Sam talks, her head spinning. They’d died. They’d _died_ , and they hadn’t bothered to tell either her or Kevin about it. “It’s because of Metatron,” Sam concludes, sounding tired. “We don’t know why, exactly, but he’s controlling Death so that he can’t take either of us. So… we made a deal. We take out Metatron and free Death, and he takes down Abaddon for us.”

“Not that we have any fucking idea how to get to Metatron,” Dean mutters. 

“We might soon,” Charlie says absently. The ghost of an idea is starting to take shape in her mind. “So you really can’t die? Like, at all? Do you just heal or what?”

“I didn’t, after an angel stabbed me in the hospital,” Sam says heavily. “And in the warehouse… I’m pretty sure she killed me, and I’m sure Dean was dead.” His voice cracks on the last word, and Charlie sees his arm move, his hand reaching out toward Dean’s, but he stops short of actually touching him. He clears his throat and turns to her. “And yeah, we were… still covered in blood when we woke up, but we’d healed.”

Everything clicks into place.

“I’m going to let you two have it about not telling us this,” Charlie warns, sitting forward. “But later. Right now? I’ve got an idea.”

They argue about the details all the way to Wichita. Dean’s completely against it, as she’d expected, but Sam also tries to talk her out of it for a good fifteen minutes before she finally wins by smacking them both in the face with her superior logic. “Look, every demon out there has to know you two,” she points out, crossing her arms. “That’s the whole point of you two being the distraction. If one of you comes with me, you’ll put me in more danger, not less.”

“I don’t like it,” Dean mutters. 

“You don’t have to,” Charlie replies, patting him on top of the head. He ducks his head, growling, and she can’t help but laugh. “Love you too, Dean.” She digs a sharpie out of her bag and uncaps it, then holds it and her forearm over the seat. “Sam, will you draw it?”

Sam frowns at her, but he takes the sharpie and, after Dean pulls the Impala off onto a side road about half a mile from their destination, carefully sketches the anti-possession symbol on her skin. “You should probably get this tattooed,” he remarks after he’s done.

She blows on it for a minute, then tugs her sleeve back down over it. “We can all go out for celebratory tattoos after,” she says, and gets out of the car.

It’s showtime.

As planned, Charlie’s the one who goes in first, on her own. Her pockets are filled with salt and holy water (in little spray bottles, because really, why _don’t_ the boys keep it in spray bottles?), the demon-killing knife is stuck through her belt and hidden under her jacket, and she’s got all her hair tucked up under a knit cap so none of the red is visible, on the off-chance that the one demon who’s seen her is there. As she approaches the door, she frowns at the building, which is, of all things, a storage facility. Of course Crowley would have stashed people in literal storage, she thinks, hating the absent demon on Kevin’s and his mother’s behalf. 

There’s no one in the office when she enters, save some hipster-looking dude whose nametag reads ‘Del.’ Her heart starts racing, but he doesn’t seem to recognize her at all; mostly, he just seems put out that she’s trying to make him do work. “I’d like to a rent a unit,” she tells him, fingering her phone in her pocket. As he boots up the computer, his glum expression never changing, she mentally crosses her fingers that this place doesn’t keep everything on paper and does her best to crack into the system using only her phone. It’s ridiculously easy, as there isn’t even a firewall, let alone any actual security. Plus, Del never actually looks at her; she could be turning cartwheels and waving the phone in the air and he wouldn’t notice. By the time he’s mumbling something at her about monthly rates, she’s already gotten into the records and found the most likely candidates for where Kevin’s mother is being kept: three adjacent units on corridor Q, all rented long-term to the same ridiculous name. She quickly thumbs off a text to Sam and Dean, then tucks her phone away.

Any moment now.

“Thanks,” she says when Del finally bothers to look up. “So, like, what do you recommend?”

He rolls his eyes so hard she half-expects them to pop out. “Look, we’re about to close—” He cuts off suddenly, his eyes widening as the door behind her swings open. 

“We’re looking for Abaddon,” Dean growls.

Right on time. Charlie ducks to the side, edging away as Del sputters at Sam and Dean, who are standing in the doorway brandishing guns and looking every bit as badass as the books tell it. As she watches, Del — who’s definitely a demon, given his reaction to the sight of Sam and Dean — fumbles for a bowl half-filled with a dark red liquid, never taking his eyes from Sam and Dean. Neither of the boys looks at her, and so when she slips around the counter and into the back where (presumably) the keys are kept, Del the demon doesn’t notice at all.

_Phase one, complete._

There’s a body back there, sprawled on the floor in a half-congealed pool of blood. Charlie nearly lets out a yelp of surprise, but claps her hands over her mouth just in time. The guy’s wearing a nametag too, she sees, though she can’t read the name through all the blood. Del’s co-worker, she thinks sadly. Del must have killed him in preparation for calling Abaddon. 

But she doesn’t have time to mourn. She edges around him and grabs the keys she needs, then sidles back up to the desk. Del’s facedown on the floor, unmoving, and Sam and Dean are both hurriedly drawing a circle on the floor with holy oil. “Go!” Dean hisses when he catches sight of her. Charlie scoots around the desk and out the door, crossing her fingers that it’ll take Abaddon at least a couple more seconds to arrive.

She’s just in time; right as she’s disappearing around the edge of office and towards the long hallway leading to the units, the door bangs into the wall, and she hears a woman’s voice say, “Well, well, if it isn’t the Winchesters, and so quickly too. I might not kill that prophet after all.”

A gunshot rings out as she breaks into a run, her feet slapping the concrete as she winds through the featureless corridors, comparing numbers on the units as she tries to navigate. The whole place is a total clusterfuck in terms of logical layout, but eventually she stumbles into corridor Q. She chooses the middle unit first, unlocking it and pulling up the metal door with a loud screech. “Mrs. Tran?” she calls softly. “Are you here?”

A cough answers her. Charlie blinks in the gloom, using the flashlight on her phone to reveal a woman chained to the floor. Even though Charlie’s never seen her, she still recognizes her; there’s something of Kevin in her face, thin and dirty as it is, and some of the stubbornness Kevin’s told her about, not completely erased.

“Go away,” the woman growls.

“Kevin sent me,” Charlie replies, dropping to her knees and examining the chains holding Mrs. Tran to the floor. They’re short enough that she can’t make it to the door, Charlie notes, which she can see has some kind of electrical lock on it from the inside, along with a camera positioned over it. So Mrs. Tran can be monitored, she thinks, disgust rising in her throat. There isn’t even a towel in here, just a bucket and a cold concrete floor.

If Crowley isn’t dead, she thinks, she’s going to find him and kill him herself. While Kevin and Mrs. Tran watch.

“Kevin?” Mrs. Tran repeats, hope and fear both blossoming in her voice. “He’s not here, is here? It’s a trap, that demon woman—”

“No, he’s safe,” Charlie reassures her, pulling the lockpicking kit Dean gave her from her pocket. “I’m Charlie, by the way. Come on, we need to get out of here.” She sets to work on the manacle holding the chain to Mrs. Tran’s ankle. She’s practiced this on locks at the bunker, but her hands are shaking so much she can barely even get the picks inside, let alone wiggle them around in exactly the precise way she needs to. She keeps remembering the gunshot, and how quickly Abaddon appeared. What if the devil’s trap bullets don’t work? What if they hadn’t finished getting the oil down in time? What if their whole death-allergy thing doesn’t apply if Abaddon rips them apart or burns them to ashes? What if—

“Oh, give me that,” Mrs. Tran snaps, taking the picks from her and expertly working them into the lock. A few moments later, the manacle springs free, revealing a bloodied and oozing stripe on her ankle. “Here,” she pants, shoving the picks back into Charlie’s hands. Charlie hurriedly stows them away, then helps Mrs. Tran to her feet. 

They hurry down the corridors, winding their way toward the back of the facility, where Charlie remembers there being a fire door. Mrs. Tran is unsteady on her feet, but her expression is pure determination as she moves down the halls, one hand on Charlie’s shoulder, the other clenched in a fist. “Here,” Charlie says, giving her one of the spray bottles. The other she keeps in her free hand. “Holy water.”

Mrs. Tran nods grimly.

But they don’t run into anyone (or anything) before they reach the door. It’s alarmed, Charlie sees, but at this point she just wants to get them both the hell out of there. She starts to push it open, but Mrs. Tran pulls her back. “There’s an alarm,” she hisses. She hands Charlie the spray bottle and holds out her hand. “Give me those lockpicks.”

Puzzled, Charlie hands them over, then watches open-mouthed as Mrs. Tran expertly pulls the wiring out of the alarm. “I used to help Kevin with engineering-club assignments,” she says, clipping a couple wires. “Open the door, it should be fine now.”

Shaking her head in awe, Charlie pushes the door open and ushers Mrs. Tran out, all in complete alarm-free silence. A good thing too, as there’s a demon standing guard outside they take completely by surprise. The body’s that of a woman, maybe in her thirties, who sputters, “Who are you?” as her eyes flip to all-black. She starts to raise a hand, to go for the kill or the capture, Charlie’s not sure, because she guts her with the knife from her belt before anything actually happens. Lightning zigzags over the woman’s skin, flashing in her eyes and mouth and ears, before she drops like a stone.

“Oh god,” Charlie mumbles, wiping the knife (and her hand) clean on the demon’s shirt before she grabs Mrs. Tran and scuttles away.

_That’s phase two._

“How do you know Kevin?” Mrs. Tran asks conversationally as Charlie leads her around the back alleys toward the rendezvous point, like she hadn’t just witnessed Charlie killing someone (a demon, it was a demon). Mrs. Tran is seriously awesome, Charlie decides.

“Through Dean and Sam,” Charlie replies, spotting the Impala. She fishes the keys out (Dean had been reluctant to hand them over to her, but Sam had just looked at him and Dean had given them to her without another word) and unlocks it, then helps Mrs. Tran into the back. She climbs into the driver’s seat herself and slides the keys into the ignition. She doesn’t turn them, though. This is just a backup measure.

If all goes to plan, Dean will drive them all out of here.

“Are they here too?” Mrs. Tran asks from the back. 

Charlie turns to her, nodding. “They kept everyone distracted,” she explains, drumming her fingers on the seat. “The trap was for them, not Kevin, so if they showed up…”

Mrs. Tran’s face crumples for a moment. “So he’s really safe?”

“He’s really safe.”

Mrs. Tran lets out a sigh of relief, then snaps her eyes open again to regard Charlie. “You’re not… involved with him, are you?”

Charlie snorts. “No, I’m, uh, not into guys. Kevin’s my friend, that’s all.” She shrugs. “That’s enough.” 

Mrs. Tran nods, then lapses into silence. She looks like she’s been through hell; her clothes are rags, her hair is lank and plastered to her skull, and her skin is sallow and thin-looking, bruised badly around one eye and on her fingers, which are cracked and bleeding, especially around the nails. From trying to force the chains, Charlie assumes. “We have a safe place, Mrs. Tran,” she says softly. “Showers and food and everything. Kevin’s waiting there for us. As soon as Sam and Dean get here, we’ll take you there.”

“Good,” Mrs. Tran says, trying to smile. “Call me Linda. And thank you.”

“No problem.” Charlie smiles back at her. 

And now we wait, Charlie thinks, tapping her fingers on the wheel and trying not to remember the demon she just killed or run through too many horror scenarios. Everything went according to plan, more or less, she tells herself. Sam and Dean will be fine. They’ll be here any second now, ready to go.

Any second now.

“Are you sure they’re coming?” Linda asks, just as there’s a loud bang on the hood of the Impala that shakes the whole car. Charlie jumps, then scrambles out to find Dean there, the sleeves of his flannel smoking and his eyes wild, bent over Sam, who’s sprawled across the black metal, his hair falling into his open eyes and his neck bent to the side. Way too far to the side.

“Help me get him in,” Dean begs, his voice rough. 

“Is he…” Charlie can’t bring herself to finish.

“He’ll be fine,” Dean growls, almost angrily. “But we need to get out of here, now. That fire won’t hold her for long.”

Gritting her teeth, Charlie grabs hold of Sam’s shoulders and helps lift him up. His head flops over to the side, entirely unlike how heads should move on necks, and her stomach lurches, threatening to stage a revolt. Please, please, be okay, she begs whatever god’s listening as she and Dean maneuver Sam into the back seat. Linda even helps, opening the door for them and giving them advice on the best way to get Sam’s too-long legs to fit. Sam never responds, never breathes, never moves as they work, and Charlie’s face is wet by the time they’re done.

“Drive,” Dean tells her, climbing in after Sam and easing his head onto his own lap. Charlie watches, tears dripping down her chin, as he straightens Sam’s neck and then carefully brushes his hair out of his face. He looks up at her then, his eyes red, his face tight with worry. “Go!”

Charlie jumps into the driver’s seat and turns the key with shaking heads. 

Once they’re on the interstate, Linda, who’s in the front seat with her, asks if she can borrow her cell. Charlie hands it over without looking, listening numbly as Linda calls Kevin and tells him they’re on their way. After she hangs up, she takes over navigating duty, peering down at Charlie’s phone and glancing occasionally into the back with a puzzled expression. But she doesn’t ask any questions, and neither Charlie nor Dean give any answers.

They’re halfway back to the bunker when Sam suddenly sucks in a huge breath and jerks upright. Charlie lets out a shriek and jumps, but manages to keep the Impala inside the lane, if not perfectly straight. “Easy, Sammy,” Dean grunts, wrapping his arms around Sam’s shoulders and pulling him back down before his head can crack into the ceiling. Charlie can’t help glancing into the rearview mirror to see Sam, his eyes wide and startled, slumping back against Dean’s chest, breathing hard. His neck looks perfectly fine, now, though it’s patched with a hideous-looking bruise on one side.

“Hey, Sam. Welcome back?” Charlie tries to sound cheerful, like she watches people come back from the dead every day.

“Did he…?” Linda trails off, then shakes her head. “This is some supernatural crap, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” Charlie answers her, because Dean’s busy smoothing Sam’s hair and murmuring to him and clearly isn’t going to. “They’re, uh, they can’t stay dead. Long story. It’s just them,” she adds, anticipating Linda’s next question. Thankfully, Linda seems to accept that, and the rest of the drive is mostly quiet, with only Linda’s voice giving directions and Dean’s murmurings disturbing it.

Linda’s the first one out of the Impala when they pull up to the bunker. “Is my son in there?” she demands, striding on shaky legs toward the unobtrusive-looking door. Charlie reaches around her to unlock it, then glances back to see how Dean and Sam are doing. Sam seems mostly fine, is walking and everything, but Dean has an arm around his waist anyway and is guiding him toward the door. Charlie resolves to hug Sam at the earliest opportunity and then ducks into the bunker after Linda.

When she gets to the library, she finds mother and son clinging to each other, tears spilling down both their faces. “Mom,” Kevin’s mumbling, his forehead against her shoulder. She’s stroking his messy hair, telling him he needs to take care of himself better while she rocks him. Charlie can feel tears stinging her eyes again, and she suddenly misses her own mother so much it’s like a physical ache. But she’s happy that Kevin has his back, she thinks, wiping at her eyes. At least one of them does.

A moment later Sam and Dean finally come in, their arms still around each other. Dean looks worse than Sam, Charlie thinks, taking them in. Aside from the bruise, Sam looks pretty much fine now, but Dean’s sleeves are burnt, his face is smeared with ash, and he’s limping, she notices. She goes over to them and wraps her arms both of them at once, which is harder in practice than in theory. “Seriously,” she mumbles into Sam’s chest, “you two are entirely too big.”

Before they can really get a proper three-way hug going, though, Kevin interrupts. “I’ve got bad news,” he announces. 

“Bad news?” Charlie repeats, reluctantly letting go and turning around to regard him.

“Is it Cas?” Dean demands, untangling from Sam. “Did you hear from him?”

Kevin shakes his head. He’s still got his arm around his mother, but he’s facing them now, his expression apologetic. “No, it’s… I think I know what Abaddon really wanted,” he says, quiet. “While you were gone, someone broke in. I never saw anyone, but when I went back to my room…” He shakes his head again. “Both the angel and the demon tablets are gone.”

***

Impossible, Dean thinks. “There’s no way demons can get in,” he says. “The place is warded to the teeth. Same with angels, except we put those in place. Nothing else can get in or out unless it’s already been here or has the key.” He swipes his hand across his face, already feeling shitty for even asking this. “You sure you didn’t misplace them? I mean, Kevin, man, you’ve had blackouts and hallucinations before.”

“Not recently,” Kevin snaps. He looks over at Linda, who scowls back at Dean. For failing to take better care of her son or for implying that he lost something as valuable as the tablets, Dean isn’t sure.

“Sorry,” he says. He looks over at Sam and the deep bruise blossoming across his neck. He wants to check Sam over, make sure he’s really and truly fine, not deal with more bullshit like always.

“Kevin,” Linda says, interrupting Dean’s train of thought. “We should go.”

Kevin shakes his head. “Mom, this is the safest place we know of. It’ll be fine. Even without the tablets, Charlie can help run the translation.”

Charlie straightens up. “The tablets are missing,” she repeats. “Just the tablets? Your cuneiform transliteration is still here?”

Kevin nods. “So there’s that at least.”

“Kevin,” Linda murmurs. “If they don’t need you here—”

“Kevin,” Dean interrupts, and ducks his head at Linda’s glacial glare. “Find your mom a room, show her the showers, and get her something to eat.”

“I’ll make tea,” Charlie offers, helpfully. She glances at Dean, then adds, “And then I’ll get straight to work running the translation.”

Then, mercifully, they leave, and Dean’s alone with Sam. Sam hasn’t said much since he’s been back this time, and Dean wants to check him over in detail before anything else happens. He can still see in his head the sick loll of Sam’s broken neck, the utter stillness of his body in Dean’s arms — it brings back too much, and he has to scrub his face with his hands to blot it back out. 

“Dean,” Sam says, and reaches for him.

“Sammy,” Dean replies, and wraps his brother up in the fiercest hug he can manage.

“You’re limping,” Sam says, voice muffled by Dean’s arms.

“‘S just a rolled ankle, I’m good. I need to check you out, make sure that,” he hesitates, then continues, “make sure you came back in one piece.”

“I think I’m in better shape than you are,” Sam points out, but the bruise is still ugly, and he’s pliant when Dean pulls him back towards his own room. It’s further away from the others than Sam’s room, and Dean just wants to have some time alone with his brother, no interruptions, no more bad news or new crises to deal with. He shuts the door and turns to face Sam again, who dutifully sits on the edge of Dean’s bed and waits.

Dean’s phone rings.

Cursing, he answers, and gets Jody on the other end. “Just letting you know a few things,” she tells them. “First, filling jars with holy water does exactly zilch. Just a little fizzing and then the damned thing escapes anyway. Next, I’m finding more of these soul factories. Taken down two, but I wanted to run a quick something by you really fast. I’ve dealt with other things more than demons, but these new demons seem... I don’t know, I think they’re weaker than before. At any rate, they’re smoking out as soon as I toss some salt in their direction.”

“Jody,” Dean says. “I’m kind of in the middle of something right now. Can you cut to the chase?”

She heaves a sigh that echoes through the phone. “All right. Some of these people, I know who the new demon souls belonged to before. What would you think would happen if I salted and burned their old bodies?”

Salting and burning a demon. Bobby did it once or twice, though the results were not always consistent, but it did hurt the demons at the very least. And with the demons being somehow weaker, being just corrupted on Earth instead of honed in Hell...

He glances over at Sam again, who shrugs. “It might not take all of them out,” Sam says. “But it will cut down on the numbers.”

“Go for it,” Dean tells her. “And we’ll keep our ears open for signs of more factories. Abaddon’s making an army, and we need to be on top of it.”

“Will do,” she replies. “Call me if you learn anything new.”

“You too,” Dean returns. The call ends, and Dean just stands there staring at his phone for a while. Sam waits patiently on the end of his bed, marred only by that one violent bruise, otherwise completely perfect and whole and there.

But it’s been days since Cas and Zeke have been back, days since Zeke’s last treatment. Dean isn’t an expert, but he’s pretty sure that dying and coming back twice isn’t good for one’s health. He punches the numbers, almost angry that he has to do this.

Cas’s voicemail answers.

“Dammit,” he swears. “You’d better be okay, Cas, we need you. Sam needs you. I need you to make sure that Sam’s okay. Get that feathered ass to fly the both of you back here already.” He ends the call and throws the phone across the room onto a pile of porno magazines he’s got stacked up.

Sam says nothing, just sits there and waits.

Dean closes the distance between them, reaches for Sam, but doesn’t quite touch him yet. Things are different, now, and just the two of them being alone together doesn’t mean they can pretend that nothing’s changed.

“Can I?” Dean asks.

Sam’s eyes are warm and bright. “Yeah,” he says, his voice thick. “You can.”

Dean ghosts his hands over Sam’s face, the soft pink of his mouth, the line of his jaw, and touches there, tips Sam’s chin up and to the side to see the ugly bruise. There are tendrils of it reaching all of the way up, almost to Sam’s ear. Dean runs his hands over it, and Sam inhales sharply, but when Dean looks at his face his expression isn’t pain.

Dean strokes the bruise, the line of Sam’s throat with his thumb, watches Sam’s brow furrow, feels the weight of Sam lean into his touch. He can feel Sam’s pulse against his palm, beating fast but steady. When Dean moves his hand down to the hard line of his collarbone, Sam arches up into it. Dean leans in close, steadies himself with a hand cupping the other side of Sam’s neck, and presses his mouth against the purple stain.

Up close, Sam smells like sweat and soap and aftershave, and his skin tastes like salt. He’s so warm to the touch, and Dean feels so cold, that he buries his face in the crook of his neck and shoulder, pulls the collar of Sam’s flannel shirt open to expose more skin, breathes him in like he’s air.

Sam reaches for him, lays his hands over Dean’s, warm and heavy, and pulls back just enough that their eyes meet. Then Sam’s gaze drops, and his eyes flutter shut, and his mouth is on Dean’s. It’s just pressure at first, like last time, simple and almost chaste, and then Sam parts his lips under Dean’s, and Dean swallows him up. He tastes the inside of Sam’s mouth, feels their tongues slide together, presses in deeper and more urgently.

Skin, he thinks, he needs skin, and he moves his hands down Sam’s collar, slides his shirt back until it’s hanging from Sam’s shoulders, runs his hands across the smooth planes of his chest, marveling at how strong and solid he is. And Sam, he pulls Dean forward onto the mattress, slides his hands down Dean’s shoulders and sides to his belt, and holds him there.

Dean reaches up again, centers himself on Sam’s mouth, tangles his fingers in Sam’s ridiculous hair and pulls. Sam comes up towards him, mouth soft, pink lips turned dark, eager. They pull each other in closer, until there almost isn’t any room to breathe and they’re gasping. The heat of Sam is incredible, like a furnace wrapping itself around him, solid lines and edges and smooth skin. Sam’s hands are like brands on his skin, burning against him, moving up his back, holding Dean fast and sure and steady.

The blood rushes in his ears, blotting out everything but Sam’s kisses and Sam’s hands and Sam’s wonderful skin. For a moment Dean’s aware that his own shirt is gone, that Sam’s chest is naked under his hands, that he’s nestled between Sam’s long legs, but then Sam makes a needy sound under him and everything but him is gone again.

He needs to be wrapped up in Sam, needs every inch of skin to be pressed against his own, needs Sam to gasp and cry out and say his name. Everything else is pushed aside, until there’s nothing between them, until they’re lined up together, gasping shared air, until Sam’s breaking apart under him. Dean can feel this, too, as Sam rocks his hips against Dean’s — the tension, the pressure, the glorious release. He follows Sam helplessly, lost in the wake, coming in hot streaks between them.

Sam holds him in place through the aftershocks, whispers Dean’s name in his ear, a benediction. Dean rests his head against Sam’s broad chest, and listens to him breathe and breathe and breathe. 

***

Castiel blinks.

He’s standing in the center of a nondescript alley, something heavy clenched tight in one hand. It’s full night, moonless, the stars overhead cold pinpricks of white in a velvet black expanse. The only light comes from a dim streetlight several feet ahead of him, at the mouth of the alley. 

The last he remembers, it was midday, and he was tied to a chair while the angel Bartholomew stood over him.

Castiel looks down at his hand. He’s holding an angel blade, but not his own; that one is still in Abaddon’s hands. No, this one is another angel’s property, presumably taken from them by force. Bartholomew’s? Castiel wonders, lifting it to inspect the point. The blade is clean, however, giving him no clue as to how he has come to possess it.

Why doesn’t he remember?

He thinks back. After locating the preacher Buddy Boyle, the one behind the missives Charlie had discovered on the Internet, he’d approached cautiously, knowing all too well that many angels would kill him without a second thought. Ezekiel had even warned him off, arguing that there was no reason to continue investigating, as they had discovered the whereabouts of the preacher and could now take the knowledge to Dean and Sam. Castiel remembers being brought up short by the intercession; Ezekiel, true to his word, usually did not communicate with him except when it was time to heal Sam. And so he had almost turned back, but then he had seen one of the angels himself, possessed of a tall, blond-haired male vessel, the same he had once worn before Heaven’s closing.

Bartholomew.

So Castiel had stayed, wanting to know what Naomi’s former protégé was planning. “Are they still scattered?” he remembers asking Ezekiel. “Or is this Bartholomew’s attempt to gain enough power to take back Heaven and seize its leadership? You must remember Bartholomew and Naomi’s tutelage of him, Ezekiel. He is not to be trusted.”

_Yes, I remember_ , Ezekiel replied after a pause. _But is Bartholomew not a better option than Metatron? Does it matter, in the end, if it means that angels are once again united?_

“Perhaps,” Castiel admitted. “But we won’t know unless we investigate.”

To that, Ezekiel had had no counter.

Castiel remembers stealing inside the building unobserved, watching many humans gather, all of them now serving as vessels for angels. He remembers hearing them speak of war, of storming the gates of Heaven and ousting Metatron, of the threat of angels who didn’t agree with their tactics, if not their goal. He remembers Bartholomew’s voice, more commanding than the others, demanding that they find more vessels, more angels to rally to their cause.

And he remembers Bartholomew’s hand, tight on his neck, the tip of his angel blade cold against his throat.

They had imprisoned him in a room somewhere on the upper floors, bound by spelled ropes and sigils inked onto his skin. Bartholomew had drawn the tip of the blade over his cheek, smiling. “So Castiel still lives, after causing our exile,” he had drawled. “Have you come alone? Or are you a spy for one of the many others who still refuses to fall under my leadership?”

“I stand alone,” Castiel told him.

“I have trouble believing that,” Bartholomew replied. “You once aspired to lead us. Would you walk away now, when you have helped create the one situation that could bring all angels together under one banner? When some still would call you leader, if you claimed it?”

_Castiel,_ Ezekiel had said, alarmed. _If he uses that blade, we both shall perish._

“I should kill you,” Bartholomew continued, “as I have killed all who stand in the path of Heaven. Malachi is nothing but a mad thug, drunk with power; his forces will bend, in the end. Rebecca’s penitents are already eliminated. And Hannah…” He spits the name. “She and her ilk have refused to take sides. She searches instead for you, hoping that you will be the one to unite us, without death or harm. She is a fool.” He leaned down close. “But if you join me, then those who follow her will fall in line, without bloodshed. If you join me, we will have power enough to take on Metatron and regain our home. With your knowledge of the spell, and my power...” He had straightened, looking down at Castiel, his eyes burning. “Think on it, Castiel.”

Hours had passed, possibly even an entire day, alone in that room, spent working his way out of his bonds. Castiel can recall the time with perfect clarity, can remember his mounting anxiety over his failure to contact the Winchesters, his worry over Sam’s condition deteriorating without Ezekiel’s healing, his growing concern that angels at war with each other would, in the end, destroy not only them, but also the Earth they were tasked to protect.

Bartholomew had returned at mid-afternoon of the next day. “Have you considered my offer?” he’d asked after placing the tip of his angel blade against Castiel’s heart. “I would not kill you if I don’t have to. I am not Malachi, choosing to torture and destroy those who have not chosen a side. I would not thin our ranks so easily. So many good soldiers were lost in the Fall already. Sophia was lost, as was Azrael, and—”

And then Castiel had opened his eyes to find himself standing in this alley.

Perhaps, he thinks, looking down at the blade in his hand, this is what it’s like, when a vessel regains control.

He stows the blade in his coat, momentarily surprised at the weight it seems to add, far more than he remembers from before. But he doesn’t dwell on it; with rapid steps he approaches the street, keeping a close watch on the shadows around him. But nothing moves, not human or angel or demon alike, and he steps onto the street unmolested. It’s not the same place, he sees, his alarm building. This is not where he found Bartholomew; he doesn’t recognize anything around him. This is not just a case of his body being momentarily taken over in order to escape.

Something else has happened.

He fumbles for the cell phone he carries, out of reach until now. He will call Dean, he thinks. He will discover what time and day it is, and he will learn his new location.

And then he will talk to Ezekiel.

But just as his hand closes around its flat surface, one of the shadows stirs. 

“Found you,” he hears, just as he catches a glimpse of unfurling wings, dark against the light of the streetlamps. “Castiel.”


	8. CHAPTER SEVEN

  
  
_the bloody angle, the symmetry_   


A man steps out of the shadows, one nearly as tall as Sam, but thicker, with a straggling beard and a scar bisecting his face. “Malachi wants to talk to you,” he growls, pointing at Castiel, a flash of silver gleaming in his hand. An angel blade, Castiel sees. He almost takes a step back, but then rethinks it and instead steps forward, back into the alley, back toward the unknown angel. No matter the late hour; he will not have this confrontation on a city street, in front of humans.

“That’s too bad,” Castiel tells him, his eyes on the point of the angel blade. “I’ve no wish to talk to him.” _Ezekiel_ , he thinks, though he is not sure how much he trusts the angel now. He still has no idea where the angel blade he carries came from, or what happened between escaping Bartholomew and finding himself in this alley. But without Ezekiel’s help, he is almost powerless against another angel. _We should go._

_We cannot_ , Ezekiel replies. _Look._

“Oh, you’ll talk,” another voice sneers, and another man melts out of the shadows, this one shorter, with drooping hair and a malicious smile on his face. His left arm is wrapped around the neck of a woman, with soft wavy brown hair and smoky blue eyes wide with shock. His right holds an angel blade, the tip pressed into the woman’s throat. “You’ll tell me what I want to know, or I kill this cowardly holdout right here.”

“Malachi,” Castiel guesses. “Let her go. She is not part of this.”

“Oh, she is,” Malachi replies, digging the point in a little deeper. A bead of blood wells up around the tip. “She’s just like the others who won’t choose a damn side.”

“I have chosen a side,” the woman spits, heedless of the blood now dripping down her neck. “I choose the side that isn’t you and Bartholomew letting your petty blood feud destroy us all!”

“Theo,” Malachi barks, and the other angel puts his blade to the woman’s cheek, slicing it open. She cries out, and blood pours down her cheek, sparks playing around the cut. 

“It’ll be your tongue next,” the angel, Theo, warns her in a low voice. The woman falls silent, her blue eyes blazing.

“Now that we understand each other,” Malachi continues, as if this is nothing but a pleasant chat, “you’re going to tell me how to reverse that spell Metatron used, and you’re going to do it before I lose patience and gut pretty little Hannah right here.”

So this is the Hannah Bartholomew mentioned, Castiel thinks. Aloud, he says, “I don’t know what spell Metatron used. I was under the impression that I was helping to close the gateway between Heaven and Earth to keep the angels in, not expel them. I can’t help you reverse it.”

“So you say,” Malachi sneers. “The great Castiel, merely a dupe. And you expect me to believe that?” He nods to Theo, who lifts his blade. “Wonder if your tune will change if we kill her.”

Grinning now, Malachi turns, shoving Hannah out toward Theo. Theo raises his blade high, his face impassive. Castiel thrusts his own hand into his coat, groping for the angel blade he’d stowed there earlier. His fingers find it, but not before he registers the presence of something else in his pocket, something large and heavy, rough to the touch. _Ezekiel!_ he cries, knowing already that he is too late.

Just as Hannah grabs the angel blade from Theo’s hand and spins around, slicing it across Malachi’s throat.

Malachi’s eyes goes wide, his breath sputtering to a stop as blood fountains out of the gash. Castiel hides his face as white light blazes from the wound, lighting the alley as bright as noon before going out, plunging them into darkness. When he uncovers his eyes and looks, barely able to see in the dim light of the streetlamp, Malachi has fallen onto his back, his arms spread out, the angel blade he’d held dangling from one hand. An outline of ragged wings seems burned into the concrete around him.

Bartholomew will be pleased, Castiel can’t help thinking. But he knows the bloodshed will not end here. All of those who followed Malachi will retaliate, killing many, before being hunted down and tortured until they join Bartholomew, or killed if they do not. Malachi’s death means nothing, in the end.

Hannah turns to Theo, holding the blade out before her. She’s drenched in blood, her vessel several inches shorter than his, but he still backs up a step. “You too,” she hisses to him. “I know you tortured Muriel, and Nathaniel, and countless more, all for him.”

Theo holds up his hands. “No,” he mumbles, darting a glance at Castiel. “No, you don’t understand. I didn’t find Castiel so I could hand him over to Malachi.”

“No?” Hannah challenges.

“No,” Theo insists. He jerks a thumb at Castiel. “He’s close to Metatron, everyone knows that. He can intercede with Metatron for us. If he tells Metatron that we’ll fight for him, we can go back home.” He turns to Castiel then, his heavy features twisted in supplication. “Tell Metatron I’ll fight on his side,” he begs. “I’m a team player, Castiel. If Metatron lets me back into Heaven, I will do anything he asks.”

“I am not close to Metatron,” Castiel says quietly. “You’re fooling yourself if you think I hold any sway over him. Metatron nearly destroyed me. He tricked me into doing his trials, and then he stole my—”

His tongue goes leaden in his mouth, sealing off the last word he was about to say. Castiel stops, nearly choking, alarmed.

_No,_ Ezekiel says in his mind. _Do not tell them about my presence. Do not tell them what Metatron did. It would… confuse them._

It strikes Castiel as questionable, that Ezekiel would request this. But it also strikes him as prudent not to alert Ezekiel to his growing suspicions, so he merely answers, _Good idea_ , and leaves it at that. Once they are alone again, then he will demand answers.

“You idiot,” Hannah says softly. She has lowered the blade and is looking at Theo with something like pity in her eyes. “Metatron cares nothing for us, and you are just as unworthy of Heaven as he is!”

Theo turns on her. “And it was angels like you,” he growls, “that made Heaven fall in the first place.” He grabs the angel blade from her hand and raises it high, his face a mask of fury.

Castiel blinks.

When he opens his eyes again, he is standing over Theo’s fallen body, the angel blade gripped tightly in his hand. Hannah stands next to him, both Malachi’s and Theo’s blades gathered in her arms, looking at him with a mixture of gratitude and awe.

“Thank you,” Hannah says, and Castiel turns to her, still disoriented. 

_Ezekiel_ , he thinks. _Did…_

_You could not act fast enough on your own,_ Ezekiel replies.

Proof, then, that Ezekiel has done this before, made him forget his own actions while Ezekiel was in charge. Proof that Ezekiel had done it just before this encounter. 

But why?

“I’ve been looking for you too, Castiel,” Hannah is saying, her eyes imploring his. “You know what it’s been like, the war between Bartholomew and Malachi. Malachi’s followers will lash out in retaliation for this, and Bartholomew will not rest until he’s forced all of us to bend to him. You knows this, and yet you stood up to him, when he asked you to join him. You’re the only one who has and survived.” She reaches out with her free hand, catching his. “You led us once before. Will you not lead us again, against Metatron? Will you not stop the wholesale slaughter of our brothers and sisters and help us return home?”

“I’m no leader,” Castiel replies.

“But you—”

“I am no leader, Hannah,” he says again, firm. He meets her eyes. She’s right, he thinks. The angels do need a leader, and not Bartholomew. But it can’t be him. He is not even truly an angel. “But I will find a way to stop Metatron, and make him pay for what he’s done.”

“Then let us help you,” Hannah returns, his eyes narrowing. “Those of us who don’t want to fight each other, who just want to go home, or even be left in peace here on this Earth. Let us help.”

He looks at her for a long moment. Then he nods. “All right,” he says. “When I find a way, I will contact you.”

She smiles at him, smiles as if all her prayers have been answered. “Thank you,” she says again, and turns and walks away. He watches her until she disappears, until her form has melted into the shadows and is gone.

It is time. Castiel takes a deep breath. _Ezekiel,_ he begins.

In his pocket, his phone beeps, signaling that his battery is close to being drained of power. 

His phone. 

His talk with Ezekiel can wait, just for a moment. Castiel pulls the device out of his pocket, already dialing the number. It rings once, twice, and then Dean’s voice comes on the line, slightly groggy, as if he has just woken up. “Cas, man, where the hell have you been? It’s been three days—” 

“Three days?” Castiel interrupts. He had thought himself trapped for one, perhaps two. “Are you certain?”

“Of course I’m sure.” Dean sounds irritated now, though Castiel can hear frustration, and perhaps even fear, behind it. “Look, Cas, we really need you and Zeke here. Kevin’s mom is here, turns out she’s still alive, and Sam… He, uh, he got hurt, bad, and I need you two to take a look at him, make sure he’s okay.”

“I will return as soon as possible,” Castiel tells him. “I… there is civil war, amongst the angels. They’re killing each other, Dean, and they’re killing any who won’t take sides. I’ve vowed to help stop Metatron, but—” 

“But we need you here,” Dean interrupts. “We’re working for the same thing here, Cas. Metatron — look, it’s a long story, but if we can take Metatron down, Abaddon goes down too. She’s building demon armies, and she somehow got her hands on the fucking demon and angel tablets, so we’re up shit creek without a paddle right now, and the only angels on our side’ve gone AWOL. So tell Zeke to get your ass back here, pronto. We need you in the game.”

“The angel and demon tablets?” Castiel repeats. “They’re missing?”

In the back of his mind, Ezekiel stirs.

“Gone,” Dean confirms. “No idea how the fuck she managed it, but—”

But Castiel isn’t listening anymore. The weight in his pocket, he thinks. The missing time. And the knowledge, that Ezekiel has done things he can’t remember...

Without looking at his hand, he reaches back into his coat and touches the stowed object he’d felt before. It thumps against another as he draws it out, and Castiel fumbles and nearly drops it. Before he can stop himself, he looks down. 

The angel tablet is his hand.

***

Sam hears Dean’s cell when it rings, but he doesn’t open his eyes. Dean’s warm against him, his skin smooth under Sam’s cheek, his heartbeat gentle in Sam’s ears. He snuggles in closer, breathing in the salty scent of him, ignoring the irritating peel of the phone and his brother’s muttered swearing as he reaches for it. Sam doesn’t want to wake up, not yet.

He’s too happy.

At least, he thinks that’s what this is. It’s been so long since he’s felt anything good that it feels odd, almost wrong, to be trying to label this feeling that way. But lying here, his naked legs twined with Dean’s, his head on Dean’s chest, feels good. He feels relaxed in a way he hasn’t in years, loose-limbed and warm and content, like he’s comfortable in his own skin. It feels like he’s finally exactly where he should be, like the two of them have figured out how to fit together. Everything else in their lives might be going to hell, but this, the two of them, this is right. Maybe the first thing that’s been right in their lives in a long, long time.

“Don’t answer it,” he mumbles into Dean’s skin. 

“Go back to sleep,” Dean says, tangling one hand in Sam’s hair and tugging, gently. “I gotta answer, it’s Cas.”

“Cas?” Sam’s awake now, unfortunately. He blinks his eyes open and lifts his head, just enough to see Dean’s face. Even though he’s seen Dean in the morning roughly a million times before, there’s something different about seeing his face this way — just inches from his own, his eyes sleep-bright, hair mussed, lips still flushed from all the kissing earlier — that makes Sam’s heart skip a beat. 

Dean grimaces apologetically at him but puts the phone to his ear. “Cas, man, where the hell have you been? It’s been three days—” He stops for a moment, his breathing harsh in Sam’s ear, then snaps, “Of course I’m sure.” He keeps going, and Sam smiles to himself, thinking that if Dean doesn’t shut up Castiel will never be able to actually respond to any of the stuff Dean keeps throwing at him. He lays his head back down and closes his eyes again, listening to Dean’s voice rumbling through his chest.

He’s taken aback when Dean suddenly swears loudly and tosses his phone down onto the stand next to the bed. “He disappeared on me,” he growls.

“Did he say where he’s been?” Sam asks, lifting his head again.

Dean shakes his head. “Just something about a civil war between angels, and then the phone died. Or it better have, anyway. I’ll stab that squirrelly bastard myself if he hung up on me.”

“With what blade?” Sam touches the pads of his fingers to Dean’s chest, tracing the lines of it and marveling that Dean is letting him. It wasn’t until a few hours ago that he’d even realized how much he’d wanted to be able to touch Dean like this, and now that he has, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever get enough of it. “Besides, if there’s civil war, he and Zeke probably got in hot water, which would explain where they’ve been,” he points out, skipping his fingers down Dean’s abdomen and exploring the soft dusting of hair just under his belly button. He gets why Dean’s so irritated with Castiel — hell, Sam’s been pretty ticked off at him himself these last couple of days — but right now, he’s still feeling too good to let it bother him for long.

Dean sucks in a breath in response, his skin twitching a little under Sam’s fingertips. “Yeah, true,” he concedes. He touches Sam’s chin then, and Sam catches his breath again, his eyes on Dean’s lips, already leaning forward so he can meet them. But Dean just tips his head up and angles it to the side, brushing Sam’s hair out of the way. So he can see the bruise on Sam’s throat, Sam knows, slightly irritated that Dean is still obsessing about that. But then Dean skims his fingers over it, just barely touching him, and the memory of Dean’s mouth on that skin shivers through him.

“Dean,” he mumbles, his whole body astir with the nearness of his brother.

“You sure you’re okay?” Dean asks, frowning at him. “I mean, Zeke said he had to heal you a little every day, and it’s been _three_ , and then yesterday—” 

Sam responds by lifting himself up until he can kiss the line between Dean’s brows. “I’m all right,” he murmurs, kissing his way down Dean’s face until he can press his lips to the skin underneath Dean’s ear. “Better than all right, actually.”

Dean shudders. “Last night,” he begins, uncertain.

“Still tonight,” Sam murmurs back, glancing up at the clock Dean’s got on the shelf above his bed. “It’s only been about six hours since we fell asleep.”

He can feel Dean smile, just a little. “Yeah, and that’s like twenty for a hunter. Right?” He threads his fingers through Sam’s hair again, tugging on it until Sam reluctantly pulls back enough to look at him. “So, last night.”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “Are you seriously trying to talk about this? Now?”

Dean blows out a breath and looks at him, half-fearful, half-hopeful. “Thought you liked that kind of crap.”

“Okay, yeah, I do, but not,” Sam trails his lips over the line of Dean’s jaw, the scrape of his brother’s stubble sending little shocks of pleasure through him, “when I’m trying to kiss you.”

Dean turns his head, his mouth seeking Sam’s. Their lips catch and press, slotting together like they were made for this. Sam shifts, bringing his hands up to cup Dean’s face, and drinks him in. It doesn’t matter that they both taste a little sour or that they’re still sticky from earlier. No, Sam thinks as they deepen the kiss, as Dean’s arms wrap tight around him, as they tangle their tongues together and breathe each other’s air, he’s definitely not going to be able to get enough of this for a long time. 

He doesn’t let himself think about the fact that they almost certainly won’t get a long time together. He doesn’t let himself think about the fact that even if they somehow manage to stop Metatron and Abaddon, they’ll just have to face Death again, in the end. He doesn’t let himself think about anything but this, the two of them, here.

“To be fair,” Dean pants when they break apart, both of them breathing hard, “it’s not like you’ve spent a whole lot of time trying to, uh. Kiss me before.”

“Hmm. True.” Sam kisses him again, sucking his lower lip between his. Dean groans, his body arching into him, his thigh pushing up between Sam’s. Sam nips him and then moves his lips to Dean’s ear, nibbling on the lobe. “Better get used to it then.”

“Jesus,” Dean mumbles, twining his hands in Sam’s hair and pulling him back into a fierce kiss. Sam rolls them, until Dean’s on top of him, his weight pressing Sam down into his ridiculous memory foam mattress. Like this, he can feel Dean all over, the heat and breadth of him against Sam’s own body, the hardness of his erection against Sam’s hip. 

“You sure?” Dean whispers against his lips. 

“About this?” Sam kisses him again, slow and sure, taking his time. No need to rush, at least not right now. They’ll have to get back to the world outside Dean’s room soon enough, but Sam’s going to keep it at bay as long as possible. “Yeah, Dean. I’m sure.”

Dean drops his head, pressing his cheek against Sam’s and breathing onto his shoulder. “I mean, we’re _brothers_ , we never — I had no idea that you — hell, I had no idea that _I_ —”

“Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

“Yeah.” Dean raises himself up on his elbows, looking down at Sam, and his expression is so fond, so full of genuine love, that Sam’s throat tightens. “Yeah, okay.” He nudges his lips against Sam’s again, kissing him so gently Sam feels like he’s going to come apart.

There’s a loud crack, and the walls seem to shake around them. The fan on the shelf over the bed rattles and then topples over, and the lamp nearly does, sending light spinning in wild patterns on the ceiling for a moment. 

They both freeze.

“Shit,” Dean swears, rolling off of him and staggering to his feet. “Shit, shit, shit. What the hell just happened?”

He grabs for his clothes, which are scattered on the floor next to the bed, and struggles into them, then throws Sam’s shirt at him. Sam yanks it on and then grabs for his boxers and his jeans. He should have known, he thinks ruefully, as he follows Dean out of the room at a dead run. Of course they would get interrupted. Of course they wouldn’t get to keep this moment to themselves. They’re Winchesters.

And there’s always work to do.

***

The last of Kevin’s handwritten documents has been scanned in, the translation software’s been installed and prepped, and Charlie’s doing what she does best — staying up ridiculously late and messing around with computer programs until she can make it all work. Which might take a while, she has to admit. There’s no online record of this particular form of cuneiform, so she’s having to fudge it by using a compendium of existing forms, separating out each symbol to run for comparison, all while analyzing the patterns of the whole. It’s daunting, to be sure, but computers have never let her down before. She’s sure they won’t this time, either.

She just hopes it doesn’t take _too_ long.

She’s in the zone, typing with one hand and eating peanut butter toast with the other (they seriously need to go on a grocery run soon), when she hears footsteps approaching the library. “They’re all scanned,” she calls out without looking up. It’s probably Kevin and/or Linda, unable to sleep; she hasn’t seen Sam or Dean since they got back, not that she’s surprised, after what went down with Sam and all. “I just need to plug in some algorithms so the analysis of the patterns can—”

“Charlie,” someone says, interrupting, and Charlie starts, her head jerking up. 

“Castiel!” she exclaims, dropping the peanut butter knife and leaping to her feet. He’s standing in the doorway, his expression grave. But there’s no mistaking that trench coat or those blue eyes; it’s him, finally back and standing before her like it’s just another day at the bunker.

“Where have you been?” she demands, putting her hands on her hips. “Dean’s been trying to call you for _days_. We could have really used you these last few days, you have no idea what’s been going on. And Sam! What about Sam? Ezekiel’s still healing him, you can’t just—” She takes a deep breath and reins herself in a little. She barely knows the guy; it’s not her place her to ream Castiel out for up and vanishing on them. No, that honor is Dean and Sam’s. “Look, let me go get them,” she says. “You can explain to them.”

Castiel’s blue eyes seem to flash, just a bit. “Where is Kevin?” he asks.

Charlie blinks. “Kevin?” 

Everything she knows about Castiel tells her that this is off, for him. It should be Dean he’s asking for, or Sam, since he’s still in need of angelic assistance as she just freaking pointed out. There’s no reason for Castiel to be asking about Kevin first, not when he has no idea what went down with Abaddon and rescuing Linda.

She looks at him again, closely this time. She doesn’t know him too well, admittedly, but he looks different: stiff, his hair in disarray and his coat hanging off of him like it doesn’t quite fit him anymore. He regards her with no change in his expression, no twitching of the lips or even blinking of the eyes. It’s a stark contrast with the Castiel who had begged Dean to allow him to help Sam, all those nights ago.

A suspicion starts to take shape in her mind.

“Why Kevin?” she asks slowly.

“I must speak to him,” Castiel replies, his eyes darting around the room. “It is urgent.”

She’s no expert on either of them, that’s true. But she remembers the way Ezekiel had spoken and moved, when he’d been in his other body, and she’s about 99% certain that it’s not Castiel at the wheel right now. And if Ezekiel is in charge and asking for Kevin — Kevin, not Sam, not Dean — then something’s seriously not right.

“Did I hear my name?” 

Charlie looks over to see Kevin (still awake, as she’d suspected) standing at the top of the stairs, his eyebrows raised. Linda’s standing a few feet behind him, peering over his shoulder at Castiel, her expression tight with suspicion. But when Kevin sees Castiel, he breaks into a grin. “Cas!” he says, clattering down the stairs and holding out his hand, like he wants to shake Castiel’s. “Dude, where have you _been_? Dean’s been freaking out—”

“Kevin,” Castiel (Ezekiel?) says, his voice heavy. He steps forward, and Charlie sees it then: a flash of white in his eyes. The faint glow of light rising around him. And the shadow of wings, stretching across the room.

_something’s not right something’s not right something’s not right—_

A lot of things happen at once.

Ezekiel (because it’s not Castiel, not anymore) reaches out a glowing hand, his features furrowing in a faint suggestion of regret and determination.

Kevin stops dead, his expression going from relieved to confused to fearful in a matter of nanoseconds.

Linda calls out, her voice high and panicked, “No!” and throws herself down the stairs, her arms outstretched, reaching for her son.

And Charlie grabs the knife from her peanut butter toast and stabs the tip into her forearm.

She squeals out loud at the sudden burst of pain, but it does the trick; bright red blood wells up around the tarnished silver and spills in a single flowing track down her arm. Frantically she swipes the fingers on her other hand through it, then draws a hasty circle on the table surface next to her as the knife clatters to the ground at her feet. “Triangle, triangle,” she mumbles, dabbing her fingers in blood again and sketching one on top. The rest of the symbols are easier, precise little squiggles all around the edge of the circle. Gasping with mingled pain and panic, she daubs in the last couple of lines, in the center of the sigil, praying she’s remembering it right. She’s practiced drawing this before, loads of times, but never this fast, never in actual blood, and never when it mattered.

“Please be right,” she begs, and slams her palm down in the center of it.

The resulting wave of force is strong enough to shake the room and throw her to her knees. Gasping, she looks up in time to see Ezekiel freeze into place, his back arching, white light flaring all around him. Kevin’s on the floor at the foot of the stairs, Charlie sees before she has to shut her eyes against the burning light. She covers her face, gasping with pain, hoping she wasn’t too late. 

The light dies a moment later, and she hears a loud thump, as if a body has dropped to the floor. Cautiously, she lowers her hands, sucking in a breath when the wound on her arm seems to spasm with pain. She can feel blood dripping down her elbow as she takes in the scene in front of her: Kevin, curled up on the floor, his mother holding him up, and Castiel’s body, unconscious on the floor a few feet away, eyes closed, face slack. 

It worked. 

Or, she thinks it did. From what Dean and Sam said, she’d thought the vessel and angel both got banished. But either way, he’s down for now, and she has more important things to worry about. She shuffles forward on her knees, her breath coming in pained little gasps. “Kevin? Kevin, are you—”

“Charlie?” He lifts his head, coughing a little. “What…”

“That wasn’t Cas,” she says, coming to a halt next to him and Linda and sighing with relief. “It was Ezekiel, and he was trying to—”

“To kill my son,” Linda says, her voice cold with anger. She smooths Kevin’s hair back off his forehead and then looks up at Charlie, her dark eyes blazing. “Thank you,” she says fiercely. “Whatever you did to stop him, I can’t thank you enough.”

“Me neither,” Kevin says fervently. “Thanks, Charlie.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Charlie mumbles, glancing down at her still-bleeding arm. There’s goddamn peanut butter smeared around the wound, she sees, retching a little. She’s got to wash that off and bandage this shit up, pronto. She starts to rise, but ends up sitting down hard on the floor instead, her head spinning. She’s going to start carrying around little lancets, she thinks, faint. No more knives, especially not blunt ones covered in peanut butter. 

“What the hell?” she hears behind her. She turns her head, swaying forward a little, to see Sam and Dean both standing at the foot of the stairway, their expressions identical ones of shock. They look rumpled, like they just woke up, Charlie thinks, and for no particular reason she starts to giggle. 

“Is that Cas?” Dean demands, staring down at his body.

“No,” Linda says, her voice clipped. “Its Ezekiel, apparently.” 

Dean blinks. “It’s… Zeke?”

“It’s Cas now,” Charlie slurs, pointing at Castiel, or trying to. There’s blood smeared all up and down her arm and hand, she sees. “I banished. You know. ‘Zekiel.”

“Charlie!” Sam says in alarm, and a moment later he’s kneeling at Charlie’s side, his shirt off and bundled up against her arm. She hisses with pain, but the pressure actually seems to do some good; her head clears, just a bit, and when Dean throws up his hands and demands to know just what the hell happened, she’s able to explain. Well, she’s able to tell them what happened, anyway.

Dean rubs his hands over his face, frowning. “I don’t get it,” he growls. “Zeke’s been around for a while, why wait this long to turn on us?”

“And why would he want me dead?” Kevin puts in.

“None of this makes sense,” Sam says, his brow furrowed. “If it was about you being a prophet and reading the angel tablet, he would have done something sooner. Why even bother joining up with Cas and healing me? He met you before that even happened. He could have taken you all out then if he’d wanted to.”

“And the angel tablet’s gone anyway,” Kevin adds.

“But he doesn’t know that, does he?” Charlie asks, thoughtfully. “Maybe Ezekiel wanted to—”

“Gadreel,” a weak voice says behind them. All five of them turn to see Castiel stirring, his body covered in abrasions, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. His eyes blink open, blue again, bloodshot and bruised. 

“What?” Dean growls.

“That was not Ezekiel,” Castiel rasps. He drags himself upright, pain written across his face. “I was fooled. Ezekiel is dead. That was Gadreel.”

He keeps saying that name like it should mean something to them. “And who is Gadreel?” Charlie demands, impatient.

Castiel coughs again, and blood speckles the floor in front of him. “Gadreel was God’s most trusted angel, the angel who then allowed the serpent into the garden and cursed the world with evil. He has been imprisoned for thousands of years for that crime, but he must have been exiled with all the others when Metatron forced them out of Heaven. He sought to hide his presence here by hiding within Sam, but was forced to accept my consent instead. And now—” He stops, his body racking with coughs. “He has joined forces with Metatron. He wishes to regain his place in Heaven, and Metatron has promised that he will, in return for his help.” 

Dean turns on Castiel, anger and betrayal in every line of his body. “How long have you known?” he growls. “Is that why you disappeared without even a fucking phone call? Is that why you left us high and dry, you bastard?”

“No,” Castiel protests. “No, Dean, I would not. I had no idea, I was not aware while he was in control, but his memories... When Charlie banished him from me, I saw — it’s not typical for vessels, but perhaps because I was an angel, and because this body is wholly mine...” He shakes his head, his face pale. “He is the one who took the angel and demon tablets, on Metatron’s orders. This attack, too, was ordered by Metatron.” 

He takes a deep, rattling breath, and looks at them all. “It has begun.”


	9. CHAPTER EIGHT

  
**PART THREE  
the wrong side of Heaven**   


  
  
_I'm giving in to grievances again_  


There was no other option.

Gadreel tells himself this, even as he opens the eyes of his former vessel to find himself standing behind the counter of a bar, a rag in one hand. He closes the eyes again for a moment, reorienting himself to this body again, gritting its teeth against the pain swirling through his core. He had not anticipated this, had not realized that a forceful banishment from Castiel’s body would throw him back to this one. Still, it is better than the alternative, he thinks, and opens the eyes again.

Metatron sits on the stool in front of him.

“So,” he says, twirling a stick of some sorts around in a glass, “how did it go?”

“If you are here,” Gadreel replies, the voice shaking as it emerges from his throat, “then you must know already.”

“Tell me,” Metatron replies, waving a hand. “In your own words, now.”

Gadreel closes his eyes, thinking back. 

His fall to Earth had been … disorienting. For thousands of years, his only company had been the stone walls of his prison and the maelstrom of his own thoughts and bitterness. For thousands of years, he had done nothing but brood, had been nothing but a curse, the sacrificial goat brought in to save the lamb, doomed to take the blame for a crime he had not committed. 

And then the walls had broken, and light had flooded his senses, and he was no longer trapped. No longer in Heaven, even, but amongst the humans, on a vastly-changed Earth. 

Free.

But, he had soon realized, not alone.

At first he had meant to stay hidden within his human vessel in order to avoid the myriad angels he found to be on Earth as well, certain that if any were to recognize him, they would destroy him without a thought. But when he had heard Castiel’s prayer requesting aid, he had decided to chance an approach. He had given the name of Ezekiel, whom he had heard was good and honorable. 

Nothing, in short, like he was believed to be.

It had bothered him, going against his nature to lie to them, having to be in any way like the rumors that had plagued him for so long. But he had done it, and not once but again and again, claiming that his vessel was too weak, that he must have another in order to heal Sam, all in order to trick one of them into accepting him. And it had worked, his plan, despite it being the angel who had said yes, despite Castiel continuing to involve himself in the affairs of Heaven and Hell on behalf of the humans. 

But for all his planning, he could not hide from the scribe.

Metatron had approached him the first time directly after he had taken control of Castiel’s body and freed them both from the angel Bartholomew’s clutches. He had not intended to do so for long, and was in fact about to cede control back to Castiel when a short man had appeared at his side, a wide smile on his face and something dark in his eyes. “Long time no see,” the man had greeted him.

“Who are you?” he had asked, placing one hand on the hilt of the angel blade he had taken from Bartholomew.

“You mean you don’t recognize me?” The man affected a pout. “How time does fly, I suppose. I recognize you—” He had met his gaze then, made sure he was listening, as he said the next word, “—Gadreel.”

Gadreel had frozen.

“Yes, I know who you really are,” the man chuckled. “I remember you, Gadreel. I was there, when He locked you up. I wrote it all down. It broke His heart to do it, you know.”

“Metatron,” Gadreel realized. God’s scribe, God’s voice, here on Earth, when God himself has been gone for almost as long as Gadreel had been imprisoned. “What do you want of me?”

“We go back a long way,” Metatron replied, noncommittal. “Put that angel blade away and come with me. We need to talk, you and I.”

Somehow, Gadreel had known it was not a request.

“I have a proposal for you,” Metatron had said once they were safely ensconced in some sort of cafe, which served hot beverages all hours of the day. “First of all, you’re welcome for freeing you. I’m the one who made all the angels Fall, you know.”

Gadreel did know this. It was impossible to share a body with Castiel, to share company with the Winchester brothers and their allies, and not know some things. He had nodded slowly, then murmured, “Thank you,” when Metatron had looked expectantly at him. “So no angels at all remain in Heaven?” he’d asked after. He’d suspected as much, but it still came as a shock, to hear it said aloud.

“No, none except me. And you know, I thought I’d love it that way. But Heaven’s a big place, and it’s getting tedious, being all by my lonesome up there.” Metatron had leaned forward, capturing Gadreel again with those eyes. “And so I have a new plan. Rebuild Heaven as the place He envisioned, only with just a few angels. No more functionaries like Bartholomew or idiots like Malachi around to ruin the place. And you, Gadreel, you’re the one to help me do it. You were His most trusted. You want to take back your reputation? You want to reclaim Heaven? We could do it, you and I.”

Part of Gadreel had thrilled at those words, at the thought of finally, after all these thousands of years, gaining the redemption he was owed. Even more of him had thrilled at the idea of returning to Heaven, of being free to wander its hallowed halls once more, no longer a prisoner, no longer a pariah. To return home, once and for all.

But there had to be a catch.

“You intend to be the ruler of this new Heaven?” he asked, watching Metatron closely.

Metatron placed a solemn hand over his heart. “It’s a burden I feel I must accept.”

“Does that not make you God, then?”

Metatron had laughed. “Semantics,” he chortled. “No, no, not that name. That detail can be figured out later. Right now…” He leaned forward again. “We could have Paradise again, Gadreel. Will you join me?”

There was no other option. Gadreel believed that then. He still believes it now.

“I will,” Gadreel had replied. “I will join you as second in command.”

Metatron had leaned back in his seat, his face wreathed in smiles, but his eyes still dark, still shadowed. “Bravo! With your help, Heaven will be restored, as will your reputation as one of Its greatest heroes. Just as it was before.”

“I thank you,” Gadreel had replied, lowering his head in deference. 

“But first… there are two things I need you to do for me.”

He looked up. The catch. “Yes?”

“The first is easy, for you. The Angel Tablet. I know those humans your sad little host calls friends have it. I want it. Heaven requires it, don’t you agree?”

Gadreel had nodded, slowly.

“Get it for me,” Metatron had said. “Get it and bring it back here, and I will tell you the other thing.”

Gadreel had nodded, and returned to the bunker the humans called home, where he had previously witnessed, through Castiel’s eyes, the boy prophet poring over the Tablets. He had opened the outer door with the key Castiel carried and stolen through the halls, surprised to encounter none of them. Not even the boy was in his room, when Gadreel entered. But the Angel Tablet was there, on the table, the Demon Tablet next to it. Gadreel had considered them, even touched them with the tips of Castiel’s fingers, feeling the marks that were the Words of God. 

Then he had taken them both and returned to Metatron. 

But before he had found him, he had been set upon, by two angels holding blades, both calling him Castiel. He should not have engaged them at all, he realizes now, but at the time he had panicked, afraid that if he spoke to them they would recognize him not as Castiel, but as the hated Gadreel. And so he had allowed Castiel to regain control, let Castiel deal with the threat, until he had needed to step in to preserve both their lives and the life of the angel Hannah. That had been a mistake, and not only because it was, and is, the first life he has ever taken, even if it was in defense of others.

For Castiel had spoken to Dean Winchester, had learned how much time had passed, and worst, had seen the Tablets Gadreel had concealed in his coat.

There was no other option.

Gadreel had wrested control of him again and departed the scene, fleeing to Metatron before properly considering what he was to do now that Castiel knew that he was, if not Gadreel, at the very least a liar. That had he taken control of him without warning, after vowing not to do so. That his perfect host was no longer so.

“Great,” Metatron had declared when he laid the Tablets before him, a genuine smile of pleasure on his homely face. “And the Demon Tablet too. Good idea, they might think the demons took them this way. You outdo yourself, Gadreel.”

Gadreel had ducked his head again, this time with humility. 

“You’ve passed my first test,” Metatron had said then, after tucking both Tablets firmly away. “Now for the second. I need to be sure of your fidelity, Gadreel.”

“You have it,” Gadreel vowed.

“No,” Metatron said. “No, I mean really sure. We have enemies who pose a threat to our efforts. You know very well what I mean. You’re wearing one of them right now.”

“Castiel?” Gadreel had replied, confused.

“Castiel, and his pet humans Sam and Dean,” Metatron snorted. “You must know they plan to overthrow me if they can, them and their little prophet. They must be neutralized.”

Gadreel had seen the meaning in Metatron’s face, but he asked anyway. “Slain?”

Metatron inclined his head. “In a word.”

Slain. Metatron wanted him to become a killer, for Heaven’s sake. That had never been his purpose or his duty; his had been to protect, not to harm. “That... that is not who I am.”

“You’ve already stolen from them,” Metatron pointed out. “And they’re enemies of Heaven, all of them. I need to know you’re loyal to me, Gadreel. There is no place in Heaven for disloyalty, as you well know. I’d hate to have to lock you out again.”

“I will do as you ask,” he had replied, and bowed his head, hating himself for agreeing. But he could not lose his one chance to return to Heaven, to have his name cleared and the truth of his deeds known. “Do you intend me to slay my host?”

Metatron laughed. “No, not yet. We’ll start with the prophet, shall we? The less they know about what was on here,” he pats his pocket, “the less they’ll be able to do. As for Castiel, well. Let’s just say you might want to look up where your first vessel got to, because I have plans for him and his little friends later.”

The prophet. The boy, Kevin, who had lost his mother, who looked tired all the time, but still fought ceaselessly. Gadreel’s heart had clenched in his chest.

But there was no other option. 

And so he had gone. He had opened the door to the bunker with Castiel’s key, and then, without quite knowing why, had hidden it in the brush surrounding the sunken door. Then he had entered, hating every echo his footsteps made, hating every breath he took, hating every step that brought him closer to fulfilling this second, onerous, task.

But he had failed. He has failed Heaven once again, and now he is in a bar he knows not where, back in his first vessel’s body. The lies he had told in order to gain access to a different vessel are the truth, now. He is weakened, diminished, his secrets revealed, and Metatron sits across from him, sucking a cherry off a stick as Gadreel relates what happened in the bunker.

“The prophet still lives,” Gadreel concludes, bowing his head and waiting for the worst.

But perhaps it is for the best, he thinks. Perhaps it is best if he, Gadreel, dies, rather than become Heaven’s assassin. For is it worth it, in the end? Is it worth becoming what they all think him to be, in order to clear his name? Is that not folly, instead?

Metatron sets the glass down on the counter with a sharp ting. “Oh, don’t fret so much,” he sighs. “I already knew you didn’t manage to kill the boy, since his soul hasn’t tried banging on Heaven’s doors like all the others. But I know you tried, and, well, you did bring me those Tablets. Good luck translating without them, am I right? So as far as I’m concerned, you’ve proven yourself.” 

Gadreel looks up, hardly daring to believe.

“Never let it be said that I am not a generous ruler,” Metatron smirks. “More generous than the one before me, that’s for sure.” 

“Thank you,” Gadreel murmurs, looking down again. He does not want to meet Metatron’s eyes, not now.

Metatron picks up the glass again, swirling its contents. “So, are you ready for the real work now?”

And he is. He is Heaven’s to command, as he should have been all these millennia. He tells Metatron this, that he is glad he is still trusted, that he is glad to do whatever Metatron requires, in order to regain his name and his place in Heaven. He tells Metatron all of this, and he means every word he says.

But he does not tell him that he is also glad he failed, that he is thankful that the prophet still lives. He does not tell him that he is glad he does not have human blood on his hands.

And he does not tell Metatron about the still-hidden key. 

***

Dean hauls Cas up to his feet, glances at Sam, who nods in response, and then drags him down to the dungeon. Bleeding or not, friend or not, until they can figure out what to do next, Cas isn’t safe. He sits Cas down in the chair, but doesn’t handcuff or shackle him. Not now that Cas is (mostly?) harmless. 

“Dean,” Cas says. “I’m sorry. Once again you have trusted me and once again I have acted rashly and failed you.”

“Knock it off, Cas,” Dean tells him. “Yeah, I’m pissed, but we have bigger things to deal with. How bad is Sam going to get without angel mojo healing him?”

Cas coughs, wetly. There’s blood on his lip, and when he reaches up to wipe at it, he looks surprised again. “Sam is mended from his ordeal. Like everything else, Gadreel was… lying, about the severity of his condition.” Castiel looks up at Dean, like he’s suddenly realized something. “But you said he was hurt? What happened?”

Dean swallows. “He died. We both have. It’s not sticking. Metatron muzzled Death.”

Cas tips his head to the side, squinting in confusion. “But why?” he asks. “Why would he do that? You are an obstacle to him, the both of you. To make the two of you effectively immortal—” He stops, mid-sentence. “This is why Sam didn’t die from completing the Trials. Death could not take him. That is why he suffered the way he did. That is why the both of you suffered the way you did.”

“Enough,” Dean cuts him off. “You’re on lockdown for right now. Once you say yes to an angel, there’s no going back, and we don’t know if he’s coming back for you.” He ducks out into the storage room, grabs a pillow and a blanket and a bottle of water. Despite everything, he’s not a dick. But when he gets back to Cas, he’s met with a new issue.

“I need to warn Hannah,” Cas tells him. “I cannot pray to her, the other angels would hear and then we would be set upon—”

“No.”

Cas goes very still.

Dean takes a deep breath and lets it back out. “Thanks,” he says. “For what you did, taking that dick on, trying to help Sam. Actually helping Sam. Whatever. I appreciate it, really. But you’re full-on human again, and not only are you in danger but you are a danger. So I need you to stay here until we get everything back under control. If we can.”

“I understand,” Cas says, and Dean tries to ignore the hurt in his voice. He’ll get over it, Dean knows. This is not even the worst thing he’s had to do to Cas, either. It’ll be okay.

He turns and leaves and locks the door behind him.

When he gets back to the others, Sam has Charlie’s arm bandaged and is arguing with Linda Tran. Dean comes in halfway through the conversation, so it’s not like he knows exactly what’s going on, but just from Linda’s expression she’s a familiar blend of terrified and pissed off.

“I understand,” Sam says, “but I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“There’s nothing else for me to do,” Kevin adds. “The tablets are gone. No tablets, no prophetic translations.”

Linda glances over at Charlie, still pale and clutching her injured arm. “You can come with us,” Linda tells her. “You’ve got good instincts, and you’re smart, and I know Kevin’s a little young but he has an old soul—”

“Still gay,” Charlie replies. “But thanks. No, I’m going to stay here.”

“After everything that just happened?” Kevin asks.

She nods. “I’ll continue the translation. You keep yourself and your mom safe.”

He nods back.

Sam hovers over them, brow creased, mouth narrow. “Please reconsider,” he says.

“Sammy.” At the sound of Dean’s voice, they all turn to look at him. “It’s okay, Sam, if they want to go they can go. They gotta do what’s right for them.”

There is a completely awkward silence that follows that. Charlie stares at him open-mouthed, Sam’s brows go up to his hairline, and Kevin looks baffled. 

“That settles it,” Linda says, breaking the silence. “Charlie, we’ll need that sigil you used, in case we have another angel attack on our hands.”

“It’s not just angels,” Dean points out. “You have Abaddon and demons to worry about, too.”

“We’ll take precautions,” Linda says. “We’ll be careful.”

Charlie shuffles to her feet, goes over to her laptop and the pile of papers she has stacked up next to it, rifles through it for a moment before coming out with a folded bundle. “Every sigil, banishment spell, protection ward, hex bag recipe we have on file,” she says. Kevin takes it from her, then pulls her into a fierce little hug.

“Thanks,” he tells her. “For everything.”

“Kevin,” Dean says, and Kevin turns to look at him. The kid looks tired, but he also looks a hell of a lot better than he has in a while. “Take care of your mom,” Dean tells him.

Kevin nods. “I will.”

Linda takes Kevin by the arm and pulls him away. They’re really leaving, Dean thinks, and he’s scared for them. Since the Trans got introduced to this shitty lifestyle, they’ve gotten the rawest of raw deals. He wants to keep the both of them right there in the bunker, with Charlie to make them tea and Sam to geek out with. But he closes his eyes and waits and tries not to feel like he’s failing everyone around him.

When he opens his eyes again, the Trans are gone. 

***

None of them moves for a long time after the door closes behind Kevin and his mother. Sam wants to reach out to Dean, to tell him that this isn’t his fault either, that the Trans will be okay, but the words seem to stick in his throat. After all, there’s a good chance they won’t be all right, that letting them go now is what will lead to their deaths. But they can’t make their decisions for them either; Sam knows that all too well. If they chose to leave, then the only right thing to do was let them.

He just wishes it didn’t feel so much like failure.

“I’m gonna go,” Charlie finally says into the silence. Her face is chalk white, her eyes shadowed, and Sam wants to reach out to her too, though he doesn’t know what he can do for her either. 

“Go?” Dean echoes, turning away from the door to look at her.

Charlie nods woodenly and rakes one hand through her tangled red hair, holding her injured arm close to her side. Then she blinks and takes a slightly wobbly step toward Dean. “I mean, I’m gonna go sleep, not leave,” she says, hugging him with one arm. It’s so easy for her, Sam thinks as she presses her face against Dean’s, even kissing him on the cheek before she lets go. She gives Sam a quick hug too before finally vanishing in the direction of her room, leaving the two of them alone in the library. 

“We should clean up,” Dean mumbles, waving a shaking hand at the blood-stained table. He sounds hollow, Sam thinks, like everything that’s happened tonight has wrung him out, and it’s barely been an hour since they woke up in each other’s arms.

Sam moves then, finally, catching Dean’s hand with his. Dean looks up at him, his eyes red-rimmed, his face drawn. But his hand grips Sam’s with sudden strength, and he pulls Sam into a rough hug. Sam rests his cheek against Dean’s hair and closes his eyes, breathing him in. He can feel some of the tension of the last hour draining out of him just from this, from having Dean close again, warm and his. “Hey,” he murmurs, and Dean lets out a sigh and drops his head on Sam’s shoulder. 

“This sucks,” Dean mutters.

“They’ll be okay,” Sam ventures, rubbing tentative circles into Dean’s back. ”Okay, maybe not, but they can take care of themselves, and they wanted to go. It’s not on you.”

“I know, I _know_ ,” Dean mutters, pushing away from him to scrub his hands over his face. “Doesn’t make it not feel like it.”

Sam draws him back in, brushing his lips over Dean’s before murmuring, “Come on, we can clean up later,” and leading him out of the library, away from the drying blood and the fallen books and the faint scorch marks where Castiel landed. 

Dean’s quiet on the walk from the library to his room, quiet when Sam pushes him inside and then locks the door behind them. He seems distracted, lost in his own head, not even really looking at Sam as he sits on the edge of the bed and stares at the wall, his expression filled with a kind of muted sadness that he usually tries to hide. Sam hesitates, wondering if he should sit next to him, or try to talk to him, or even kneel down in front of him and kiss him. This thing between them is still so new, so unexplored, that he’s not sure what to do. 

“Dean?” he ventures finally.

“I didn’t even try,” Dean says, abrupt. “I know they wanted to go, it’s their decision, but — dammit, Sammy, they’d be safer here.”

“Probably,” Sam agrees, crossing the room to sink down onto the mattress next to Dean. Tentatively, heart beating in his ears, he reaches out and touches Dean’s hand with his own, letting out a breath of relief when Dean turns his palm and allows Sam to lace his fingers with his. “But look at it from their point of view. Kevin nearly got killed by someone we thought was safe. Being here didn’t make a difference.” He sighs. “And it’s not like we’ve done a great job keeping either of them safe up till now.”

Dean shakes his head. “I do see it from their point of view,” he mutters. “Why do you think I didn’t stop them?”

“That’s good,” Sam says, trying to sound encouraging. Of all the things to change between them in the last few days, this calm, rational talk they’re having — about _emotions_ , no less — has to be the strangest. “You know, that you saw their point of view. You, uh, didn’t used to…” He trails off as Dean pins him with a look. “Dean?”

“ _No,_ ” Dean says fiercely, wrenching his hand out of Sam’s and jumping to his feet. “Don’t you dare pull this crap, Sam, don’t you make this about _that_ —”

So much for calm and rational. “Make this about what?” Sam asks, honestly bewildered.

Dean turns away from him, pacing now, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “About seeing your point of view,” he growls, but there’s a hitch in his voice, a panicked note that hits Sam with the force of a physical blow. All at once, he remembers the last time they had a conversation like this, about seeing someone else’s point of view. 

“Oh,” he says softly.

“ _Oh_ ,” Dean repeats, mocking.

“Yeah, ‘oh,’” Sam repeats, getting to his feet. Dean turns on him, obviously ready to strike, but Sam just grabs both of his arms and pulls him to a halt, holding him in place in front of him. “Because I wasn’t trying to make it about that,” he says, locking his gaze onto Dean’s. “I know how you feel about what happened, Dean, and I wouldn’t just bring it up like that. Because,” he can’t resist adding, “I can see your point of view.”

Dean glares, his body stiff in Sam’s grip, but there’s wetness gathering on his lashes. “Then you should understand why I never wanna fucking talk about it again.”

His voice is raw, the anger edged with pain, and all of the irritation drains out of Sam, suddenly. It must never be far from Dean’s own thoughts, he realizes. Dean must picture it over and over, must relive his attempt on Sam again and again. No wonder he’d assumed that Sam must be thinking about it too. He pulls Dean into a hug then, pressing their cheeks together, holding his brother as close as he’s always wanted. Dean fights him at first, but after a moment he goes limp in Sam’s arms, his shoulders heaving as he drags in shuddering breaths.

“I do understand,” Sam whispers to him. “I just wish you could see it the way I do, Dean.”

“Like I did you a big favor?” Dean mumbles into his shirt. “Like the worst fucking thing I could do was some noble bullshit sacrifice?”

“LIke you did what you thought I’d want,” Sam whispers back. “Like you wanted to help me.”

“I know you think that,” Dean pushes himself out of Sam’s arms, wiping furiously at the tears dampening his cheeks. “I get why you're touched, I get why you think I was putting you first, but you weren’t the one who did it. You don’t know what it was like—” He breaks off, shaking his head hard. “So yeah, Sam, I see your fucking point of view, but I’m never gonna agree with it.” 

Sam grabs Dean’s hands and squeezes them tight, hoping he can make Dean understand this in a way he never really has before. “I never said you had to,” he says. “You don't have to agree with me, Dean. We don’t have to agree on every little thing. Hell, we don’t have to agree on anything, I’m not asking for that. All I’m asking is that you just try to see my point of view.” 

“We kinda have to agree on a few things,” Dean mutters, but he’s listening. Sam can tell. He’s looking at Sam, actually looking, and though he’s still rigid he’s not pulling away or fighting.

“I know it’s hard,” Sam continues, faltering a bit. He’s not used to this, not used to Dean’s undivided attention, especially over something so fraught with emotions for the both of them. He takes a deep breath. “I mean, the way we were raised… Dad never saw anyone else’s point of view either, remember? But you… you’re getting better. You saw Linda’s and Kevin’s point of view, and you saw mine. You don’t agree, but you see it, Dean. And that matters.” He lifts Dean’s hands, brings them to his mouth, kisses Dean’s knuckles. “That matters.”

“Sam,” Dean rasps, his fingers trembling.

“And it’s why…” Sam hesitates, then finishes, “It’s why I think this can work.”

He kisses Dean then, kisses him as gently as if he were made of glass. Dean tastes like salt, and his lips are wet as he parts them and kisses Sam back, his hands coming up to grip Sam’s shoulders, his whole body shaking as he leans into Sam and opens his mouth under his. Sam cups Dean’s head with his own hands, framing his face in his palms and kissing him like he’s air. 

He doesn’t remember taking their clothes off, or moving to the bed. He just remembers the feel of Dean’s naked skin against his own, of the rough feel of their hands exploring each other. He remembers the heat of it, the feeling of rightness as Dean kisses a trail down his collarbone and over his nipples, the absolute certainty as they press together, their mouths fastened, their bodies entwined.

“Dean,” he mumbles, wanting more, wanting Dean with every part of him. Trembling, his whole body taut with need, he fumbles for Dean, his shaking hands pulling him up and on top of him, settling him in the space between Sam’s thighs. 

Dean stills on top of him. “Sammy?”

“I want you,” he whispers, and spreads his legs, offering himself.

Dean shudders in a breath. “What about condoms?” he rasps, and he’s shaking too, Sam realizes. “I… there’s lube, but—”

“What does it matter?” Sam asks, twining his fingers with Dean’s. “We bleed on each other. We sew each other up. And I want this, Dean. I want...” He trails off, a hot blush warming his cheeks. “I want to feel you.”

Dean kisses him again, bending over him like a bow, his erection pressing up against the tender skin of Sam’s thigh. Sam gasps and kisses him back, his whole body electrified, his head spinning with love and need and want. It surprises him a moment later, when Dean’s fingers touch him, slippery and cold with lube, and he hisses out a breath as they slide inside of him. “Easy,” Dean murmurs into his skin, kissing his nipples, his belly button, the creases of his thighs, the tip of his erection. His fingers twist inside of Sam, opening him up, brushing spots inside of him that make him gasp and throw his head back, begging wordlessly for more.

“Please,” he manages.

“I got you,” Dean says to him, and pulls his fingers out. A moment later Sam feels the blunt tip of Dean’s cock against him, the hotness of it in direct contrast to the coolness of Dean's fingers. He lifts his hips, spreading his legs wider, gasping when he feels it breach him. Dean takes it slow, stroking his hands over Sam as he pushes in, and though part of Sam wants him to just do it, he doesn’t want to rush this either. He wants to feel every moment of it, wants to memorize this: the feel of his brother inside of him, the way Dean’s hips move, the flutter of Dean’s eyelashes as he bends his head to kiss him. 

For a while, there’s nothing but Dean, nothing but their bodies moving together, nothing but Dean’s hands on his body and Dean’s breath on his skin. Sam holds him close, pulls him in, loses himself in him, and when he comes, it’s with Dean’s names on his lips and his taste on his tongue. Dean follows him a moment later, burying his face in Sam’s shoulder and gasping his name.

They lie together afterward, Sam kissing Dean’s sticky fingers and stroking his hair, neither of them talking. The rest of the world hovers on the edge of their safe little space, but Sam keeps it at bay for a little while longer. They can’t keep this, he knows, not for long. Not with Abaddon and Metatron and promises to Death hanging over their heads. But for now, for tonight, they have each other. 

And that’s enough.

***

The latest candidate is an abandoned school in Mitchell, a mid-sized town about 70 miles west of Sioux Falls. It’s out of Jody’s jurisdiction as sheriff, but she has a friend of a friend who works there, and when she spins a tale connecting the soulless victims in her jail cells to a similar string of incidents in Mitchell, she receives _carte blanche_ in her investigation. The school itself is in bad shape, damaged from a massive storm and closed for repairs that the district can’t afford, its students shuttled off to outlying schools. It’s a good location, with strong signs of demon activity. Mostly little stuff, a few animal deaths, a few human deaths that look like bloody, if freak, accidents.

It’s dusk when she arrives, supplies close at hand. Part of her hopes that she’s wrong about all of this; after all, there was a soul factory in her own hometown, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense why the demons would just set up yet another shop next door. There has to be something else that’s a factor, but Jody can’t put her finger on what that might be.

It’s easy enough to break into the school. There’s a chain barring the front doors, but enough of the windows on the lower level are broken that she can slip inside without too much trouble. There’s some graffiti on the inside walls, most likely from the local teens, and a few signs of squatters that are at least a week old.

Jody advances carefully through the halls, scanning for demons standing guard, but before she gets too far, she hears some sort of commotion in the distance. She moves toward the noise but doesn’t let her guard down. Now is not the time for her to be careless.

As she approaches, she can separate the commotion into voices and some other ambient sounds, likely someone striking a wall or other object with something heavy. She thinks about her experience with the demons, and wonders who, exactly, is getting thrown into walls around here.

It has to be a victim.

Jody lets herself be a lot less careful in her haste to get to the center of the disturbance. She’s not quiet, but she’s not loud either, and when she turns a corner and finds herself in what might have been the school’s cafeteria, she discovers that there’s more going on than she previously expected.

Having not had experience with vampires before, it’s a shock to see one open up its mouth and display a rack of shark teeth. But the vampire in question is pinned against a wall, struggling and choking and spitting foamy blood out of its mouth.

There’s a demon there too, of course, wearing a young man, his neck stained red but looking cool and calm. There’s some monologuing from the demon for a while, nothing important, just endless threats of violence and insults about the vampire’s animalistic behavior and some general aspersions on the vampire’s ancestry.

But that’s not what catches Jody’s attention. What catches her attention is the girl crouching in the corner, face and neck bruised, her shirt torn. She’s basically pinned in place, flattened against the wall, unable to move forward without alerting either demon or vampire. Jody has to think fast to come up with a plan. The demon, she was prepared for that. But the vampire?

She casts around for something to use. Vampires can only be killed via decapitation, she knows, and she left her machete in the trunk of her car. After a moment, though, she finds an emergency box on the wall, the glass front busted open, but the fire axe still in place. Not the best thing in the world, but it will do. She creeps along the wall, eyes on the demon and the vampire and the girl, and prays that she won’t be noticed.

The girl looks away from the other two, looks up and sees Jody there, but Jody puts a finger against her lips and the girl remains silent. Jody knocks the broken glass away from the axe with her elbow, timing it so that the sounds of the scuffle between the two monsters blot it out, then waits to see if she’s been noticed before taking her eyes off of them. It’s only long enough to make sure she doesn’t slice her hands open on the glass, but that is plenty long enough for something bad to happen. She knows this from personal experience.

Axe in hand, she prepares for the next step. She always has salt on hand these days, just in case, and she has an exorcism program on her phone, courtesy of Sam and Dean. She already has the app active; all she needs to do is thumb the phone on, swipe the screen and turn the volume up as high as it will go.

She hits play, the phone blares, and Jody moves into position.

The demon reels back, spitting smoke, releasing its hold on the vampire. The vampire drops to the ground and is off like a shot, moving towards the girl, but Jody is prepared. She swings the axe as hard as she can, chopping through its neck and embedding the blade into the wall behind it. The demon is on her just as fast, even with the exorcism playing, even with the smoke pouring out of its mouth.

She pelts it with salt in the face, and the demon smokes out, swirling uselessly around in the air. There isn’t much time before it regains a body, so she grabs the girl and starts to pull her away.

She isn’t expecting the girl to turn and spit on her. “That was my brother!” she grits out.

Jody doesn’t release her grip. She hauls the girl up and drags her along. “We can discuss this later!” The girl stills and goes along with her, following Jody out of the school and to her patrol car. Jody motions for the girl to get in the car, and once inside she starts it up and drives away.

She keeps the location in mind, though. While she didn’t see any soul jars, that doesn’t mean that they weren’t there. All it means is that Jody didn’t find them. But, she figures, looking over at the girl in the seat next to her, she might have found something else.

“I’m Jody,” she offers.

“Alex,” the girl replies. “Was that a demon?”

So her brother wasn’t the demon’s ride. Jody nods. “I’ve been hunting them. And you? That vampire was your brother?” She has a sneaking suspicion. “You’re not a vampire yourself.”

The girl, Alex, doesn’t respond at first. When she does, what she says doesn’t quite line up with what Jody was expecting. “Mama says the demons’re running riot, and it’s bad for us.”

Two things strike Jody. One, the obvious point, that the vampires are scared of the demons, or at least wary of them. Two, that this girl is part of a family of vampires, though she isn’t one herself. Once a vampire has your scent, it can track you anywhere, and Jody has no doubt that Alex is going to be tracked by the rest of her “family.”

“I have a place,” she says. “It’s a nice place, out of the way, fixed up with enough protections that it should keep most things away. You can stay there for a while, if you want.”

Alex is silent.

“Just for a bit,” Jody adds, “unless you want to stay longer.”

Alex nods. “You’re nice,” she says, sounding almost surprised.

It’s over an hour to the cabin, and once there Jody texts Sam with everything she can figure out about this girl. Alex isn’t terribly chatty, but Jody does manage to figure out that her name might have been Annie, once, and that her little “family” is definitely ruled by her “mama.” She doesn’t know how a nest of vampires came to have a human girl in their midst, but Jody’s willing to bet that it wasn’t a choice on Alex’s part.

“You stay here,” Jody tells her. The school and the possibility of more souls stuck in little jars is nagging at her. Besides, Jody thinks that the vampires will also be less likely to have time to track Alex if she herself is wandering around getting into their business. “You’ll be safe here. I’ve got this place all fixed up, devil’s traps on every entrance and window, salt lines built into the sills and jams, everything I could think of.”

Alex looks up at her, her solemn face showing just the barest hint of emotion. “You’re going to kill the demons?”

“Damn straight I’m gonna try,” Jody says.

The school is abandoned when she returns, and a search turns up nothing at all. Jody doesn’t have the advantage of knowing who exactly is soulless in this town, so there isn’t really much she can do right now.

She salts the vampire’s body, covers him in lighter fluid and burns him, just in case.

It’s almost dawn when she gets back on the road to the cabin. Her phone pings while she’s driving, and she’s a terrible person and wakes up her phone to look at it. Sam has an outline of what he could find on Alex — apparently Annie Jones before she was kidnapped nearly ten years ago — and also says that he’ll email her a few articles with more information. She wants to text back, a few questions and a few thank yous, but there’s a big difference between reading a text while driving and writing one, so she stows her phone back in her pocket and concentrates on driving.

The cabin’s silent when she returns. Thinking about what Sam had sent her, the story of a kid named Annie kidnapped by vampires, likely used as a blood bank or a lure for bigger prey, it’s entirely possible that the girl bolted as soon as Jody left.

“So much for that,” she mutters to herself, shoving her hands in her pockets, and turns to head back to her car.

There’s a woman in the doorway, tall, red lips curved into a wicked smile, eyes glittering beetle-black. She has Alex by the neck, holding her up in the air so that her feet swing uselessly. So they were tracked, Jody thinks. Just not by vampires.

“You must be Abaddon,” Jody growls.

“And you must be what’s been messing up my plans,” Abaddon purrs. “And here I thought it was all the Winchesters.”

Jody thumbs her phone awake in her pocket. Last received text was from Sam, and she should be able to call him from that screen alone. She fumbles, trying desperately to make this last as long as she can without alerting Abaddon. When she feels the phone vibrate under her hand, she thumbs back to the main screen by feel alone, muscle memory telling her where the exorcism app is. Latin blares in her pocket, and she shouts over it, “What are you doing in my cabin?” Just in case the call connected, in case she lucked out and the Winchesters are on the other end of the line.

Abaddon scoffs. “An exorcism? That doesn’t work on a Knight of Hell, you silly woman. But don’t worry.” She draws her nails across Alex’s throat, drawing blood, but only a trickle. “I won’t kill either of you. At least, not until I’ve taken your souls.”

Then the windows shatter inward, and there are shark-teethed vampires surrounding them. The front door flies open, bouncing off the wall to reveal another woman standing there, deadly calm.

“Get your hands off my daughter, you bitch.”

***

Dean listens to the sounds on the other end of the line, his pulse pounding in his ears. Jody. Abaddon. He looks up at Sam and together they tear through the bunker to Cas’s cell. Cas looks like shit, drained, bloody, and exhausted, but Dean has to know if there’s any angel mojo left in him, if there’s any chance they could turn this around.

“Dean,” Cas says, sitting up. “Sam. What—”

“Jody’s in trouble,” Dean tells him in a rush. “She’s facing off with Abaddon. Cas, I have to know. Is there anything you can do? Anything?”

Castiel shakes his head sorrowfully. “No. I have no grace left. I’m so sorry, both of you, for everything.” 

“You’re sure there’s nothing you can do?” Sam demands.

Cas shakes his head again. “I can’t help you, Dean.” 

And then a voice behind him says, “But I can.”


	10. CHAPTER NINE

  
  
_I'll waste a lifetime's worth just to play to one more day_   


Leo is, or was, a young angel, an idealist who had believed wholeheartedly in what Metatron calls Castiel’s petty little ideas. “It’s the perfect cover,” Metatron tells him. “No one will question that Leo would be Castiel’s emissary, and Leo himself won’t be able to contradict your claim.”

“But if they know he has perished?” Gadreel asks. He does not like this, even though he is already guilty of assuming another’s name. “Bartholomew knew of Ezekiel’s demise, and many others as well.” 

“They won’t know,” Metatron says, a slow smile spreading across his face. 

Gadreel does not ask. He has his orders, and Heaven awaits.

He waits until Metatron has gone, waits until the bar is empty but for him, and then closes his eyes, centering himself. He can do this, he thinks. He has spent weeks upon this Earth, posing as Castiel, with none the wiser other than Castiel himself. If it means regaining Heaven, he can do it again.

_Hannah_ , he prays. _I have a message for you, from Castiel._

_Help us!_ she answers almost immediately, startling him. He has not heard another angel like this, has not had a prayer directed to him and him alone, in millennia. _There is a demon, a knight of Hell—_

Abaddon. He remembers that much from his time with Castiel, though he does not know much about the demon herself, as she rose to power after his time. But, he thinks, looking down at Bartholomew’s purloined angel blade, he does know that he can, if not kill her, at least hurt her, and possibly save the lives of Hannah and whomever she is with. And that is something that he is more than willing to do.

_Tell me where you are_ , he replies.

Moments later, he finds himself on what can only be described as a battlefield, one left fallow by the humans and now dotted with the bodies of fallen angels, the images of their wings burned into the grass around them. In front of him stands the demon he knows must be Abaddon, a woman with her back to him, her waterfall of red hair wet with blood, her arms outstretched, a bloodied angel blade clenched in each hand. “Who’s next?” she yells, flicking the blades so that droplets of blood fly off of them. 

He can see Hannah several feet in front of Abaddon, her face splattered with blood but her expression determined. Beyond her, he can see many other angels still standing, most with blades clutched in their own hands, though several are unarmed. With a lurch of his host’s heart, he recognizes Bartholomew in the distance, his light hair in disarray, an angel blade — belonging to one of his followers, perhaps? — gripped in his still-clean hand. There are others as well, he realizes, human bodies with black eyes forming a perimeter around the field. Demons, meant to box the angels in while their leader destroys them.

“I must say, I’m a little disappointed,” Abaddon shouts, stepping forward, away from him. “Did we really spend millennia warring with you pathetic excuses? Are you really what we were supposed to have the final glorious battle with?” She throws back her head and laughs, a wild sound that causes shivers to crawl down his spine. But she does not turn, does not look at him. She does not realize, he thinks, and carefully, carefully, he steps after her, the angel blade he carries at the ready. 

“You have no business doing this!” Hannah cries. 

“Don’t I?” Abaddon purrs, reaching out with one blade to trace the line of Hannah’s cheek. 

Blood spills down Hannah’s face, yet she holds her ground, her blazing eyes fixed on Abaddon’s face, and Gadreel has the sudden, traitorous thought that Hannah should be the one to lead the angels.

“Go back to Hell,” Hannah spits at her.

Abaddon sighs, shaking her head in an exaggerated parody of exasperation. “You don’t get it, do you? There is no Hell anymore, angel, except this world. And this world?” She brings up her other angel blade and points it at Hannah’s heart. “Is _mine_.”

“No,” Hannah says, her eyes widening as she catches sight of him, now standing mere inches behind Abaddon. She blinks, then deliberately looks away from him to focus on Abaddon. “You don’t get it. It’s not either of ours.”

Abaddon snorts. “Don’t make me laugh,” she says, and draws both blades back, readying for a killing strike.

Gadreel grabs her shoulder and slides his own blade into the center of her back, pressing it forward until his hand touches her clothing, until he feels the zing of demonic blood crackle across his fingers. Abaddon screams, her head going back so far that her soaked hair lashes across his face, and he pulls the blade free.

“This isn’t over!” Abaddon gasps, staggering around to face him, her face livid with fury. He regards her, calm now despite the pain crawling over his fingers, because this is his true purpose. He has protected the angels in this field from her, has saved Hannah’s life a second time. This is what he is meant to do.

“Not yet,” he tells Abaddon, and with a scream of rage she vanishes.

He drops the blade, wiping his burning fingers against his trousers. A moment later Hannah has caught his hand and is helping to clean them, her host’s vivid blue eyes looking directly into his. He cannot let on that he has met her before, he reminds himself, even as he murmurs thanks to her.

“Are you Castiel’s emissary?” she asks.

“My name is Leo,” he tells her, the words flowing more easily than he had expected. He is becoming practiced at this, he thinks, and works to keep the bitterness from his face. Leo has no reason to be bitter. “What happened here?”

“Bartholomew happened,” Hannah responds, anger shaking her words. “His forces and Malachi’s have been battling ever since Malachi was killed. They brought the battle to us today, intent on forcing us to choose sides.” She shakes her head, pushing her soft brown hair out of her eyes. “I’m not sure how the Knight of Hell found us, but with so many angels dying in one place—” She sighs. “This has to stop. It must. Divided, we cannot stand against the Knight’s forces. But we can’t follow Bartholomew either, not with so much of our blood on his hands.”

The other angels, most of them, have gone, along with all the demons, he realizes as she leads him over to a small group who waits on the sidelines, nearly all of them sporting injuries. “This is Leo,” she says to them. “Castiel sent him.”

“Castiel?” one of them, whose host is a tall woman with dark brown skin, repeats. “Then he has agreed to lead us?”

They all look to him.

_Give them what they want,_ Metatron’s voice sounds in his mind. _Tell them Castiel is willing to be their hero, and let them wonder why he isn’t there to tell them himself._

“He will,” Gadreel replies. “He will stand against Metatron, and Bartholomew. He will find a way to bring us home.”

The relief on Hannah’s face, and on the faces around him, is palpable. “Then there is a way?” one of the angels demands, her dark eyes bruised. “There is a way to reverse the exile?”

There is not, as far as he is aware. Aloud he says, “Castiel thinks so.”

“And he trusts you to tell us?” another asks.

“This is Leo,” Hannah interjects. “He was one of Castiel’s supporters before. He just stopped Abaddon’s slaughter, do you not remember?”

“And where has Leo been before today?” one mutters, so quietly that Gadreel is not sure he heard it.

Gadreel bows his head. He cannot look them in the eye, not anymore. “I am Castiel’s to command,” he says. “If you are willing, he will lead you against Metatron to regain Heaven.” He thinks again of what Metatron told him, of what he must do himself in order to return home, and forces himself to look at them all in turn. “Are you willing to follow? Even if it means that we must destroy Metatron?”

Hannah hesitates, glancing at her fellows, then answers, “Tell Castiel that we will do whatever it takes to go home.”

“Before the Knight of Hell finds us again,” the dark-eyed angel growls. “Before Bartholomew decides that it’s easier to kill us instead of convert us. Tell Castiel that, Leo.”

“And tell him to come to us himself,” the first angel adds. “Tell him that we want to talk to him face to face.”

“I will,” he lies, and turns his back to them, before more lies must pass his lips. He finds his stolen angel blade, still lying in the grass, and reluctantly takes it up. Then he is gone, away from the field and back at the bar, where he drops the dripping blade on the counter before placing his still-stinging hands under the faucet, washing until the blood, until the lies, feel less like they will consume him. 

“How did it go?” Metatron asks him, and he looks up to see him sitting across from him, elbows resting on the bar, his eyebrows raised. Gadreel tells him, his words terser than he intends. “So Abaddon’s in play now,” Metatron smiles when he has finished. “Perfect. Make sure you let Hannah’s little group know that she’s only on this earth because of Castiel’s human friends.”

“Do you wish me to slay them next?” Gadreel asks, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. 

“Oh no,” Metatron says. “No, no, no. Sam and Dean Winchester can’t die yet. Literally. Death can’t take them; I made sure of that. Castiel too. None of them can die before I finish my big story.”

“Why…” Gadreel cannot finish the question, cannot risk upsetting Metatron. But the words burn within him. Why does Metatron thwart the rules God put into place? The humans were never meant to be immortal, not like the angels. The humans were meant to be brief flashes, ephemeral, and all the more precious because of it.

“Because, my dear Gadreel,” Metatron answers, “every good story needs a villain. Where will mine be if all my main villains die before the final showdown, eh? But,” he adds, and Gadreel’s heart sinks, “there is someone you can remove for me, if you think you can handle it. His death will mean a great many fewer, after all. Even you shouldn’t have a problem with that.”

More deaths. More blood. 

But there is no other option.

Gadreel takes up the blade again. “Who must I slay?” 

Finding Bartholomew is easy, in the end. Gadreel has been in his stronghold once before, after all, had even taken Bartholomew’s blade from him when he had fought his, and by extension Castiel’s, way out. When he returns, it’s even easier, for despite his actions on the field, he is not wearing a form that Bartholomew would recognize. He is welcomed, even, when he tells the angels guarding the door that he wishes to join Bartholomew’s cause. “Are you one of the preacher’s?” they ask, and he assents, causing them to smile with self-satisfaction and bring him directly to Bartholomew.

“Leo, is it?” Bartholomew says grandly, extending a hand. He looks none the worse for wear after the battle, Gadreel thinks, taking in his perfectly groomed hair and manicured hands. Not like Hannah’s angels, who were worn down and bleeding, or like the angels dead on the field, some of whom were killed on this angel’s orders, and not by Abaddon’s hand. 

Metatron was right, he thinks as he reaches out to shake Bartholomew’s hand, as he grips it and then pulls him in close. “Castiel sends his greetings,” he hisses, sliding Bartholomew’s own blade between his ribs.

This death was easy.

_Hannah_ , he prays after he has left Bartholomew’s stronghold, leaving chaos and consternation in his wake. _Castiel wishes me to tell you that Bartholomew is no more._

_Tell Castiel he has our thanks_ , she replies. 

When he returns to the bar, Metatron is waiting for him.

Gadreel places his angel blade on the table in front of him, careful to avoid Metatron’s gaze. The blade is streaked scarlet with blood, along with his fingers, but unlike the demon’s, this blood does not cause him pain. It seems wrong, somehow, that that should be so. No matter that Bartholomew was a despot, he was still an angel, and Gadreel will never enjoy taking life, no matter how necessary.

“And how did Bartholomew take it?” Metatron asks. He is enjoying himself, Gadreel sees, and so he does not look at him. He cannot afford to anger Metatron.

“As expected,” Gadreel replies, washing the blood from his hands. It does not hurt him, no, but it seems to stain him, coating with him a taint he will never be free of. It is for Heaven, he tells himself. It is for the angels Bartholomew would have slaughtered. I am, as always, protecting Heaven’s own.

“And you told Hannah Castiel did it?” Metatron prods.

Gadreel nods, and Metatron laughs delightedly. “She is ours then,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “Well, Castiel’s, I should say. And I’ll bet that many of Bartholomew’s followers will scurry over as soon as they see which way the wind is blowing. Now, to find the rest of them.”

“What would you have me do?” Gadreel asks without looking up.

“It’s easy enough,” Metatron says, and pushes a piece of paper upon which he has scrawled a list of ingredients. “You’ve done this once before.”

Gadreel picks up the paper, perusing the contents. “The calling sigil,” he says finally. “You wish me to call them to me?”

“We need to know where the angels who aren’t Bartholomew’s or Malachi’s are hiding,” Metatron points out. “Besides, this will give you a chance to talk to some of them as well, sound them out to see if they’re worthy of coming home.”

“And what do I tell those who come?” Gadreel asks. “Do I offer them entrance to Heaven in your name, or am I to claim that I work for Castiel still?”

“Castiel, of course,” Metatron replies. “Ask whoever comes to join forces with him and Hannah in order to oust me.”

“And if they refuse?”

Metatron waves a hand. “Kill them.”

“Is this how you plan to make Castiel your villain?” Gadreel asks, unable to hide his disgust. “By killing in his name?”

Metatron chortles. “Oh no. It’s only one of the ways I have planned. Angels need this, don’t you see? They need a villain to rally around, and Bartholomew wasn’t it. He was too much of an authoritative bastard, too cutthroat. Castiel, though… he’s the one I need. And since his favorite humans tend to muck everything up and make him look even worse, well, it’s worth having them around too. Once the angels have all united against Castiel, they’ll be worthy of Heaven again.” 

“But why set Castiel up as a hero first?” Gadreel cannot resist asking. It is not his place to question the will of the leader of the Heaven, he knows this, but he does not understand. “You have them thinking Castiel delivered them from Bartholomew’s tyranny, that Castiel plans to unite them and return them home.”

Metatron laughs. “Oh, Gadreel,” he says, amusement threading his words. “You’re clearly not a writer. You think too linearly, too literally. The best villains are the ones who were heroes first. They have the farthest to fall.”

And so Gadreel does as directed, mixes the ingredients and paints the sigil in an abandoned structure, then activates it to call any angel nearby to him. He waits there, as they trickle in one by one, nervous and wary. The first two agree to join Castiel’s cause, and he sends them on to Hannah, hoping that they will all choose this, that he will not have to kill again. But the third who comes refuses; the third tries to run, and so he follows Metatron’s orders. He kills her, and the one after her, and the one after. He kills all who refuse him. It is his new god’s orders. It is Heaven’s will.

He tells himself there is no other option.

But he cannot rid himself of the guilt, of the disgust and self-loathing. He has blood on hands now. Not the blood of Theo, who was trying to kill Hannah and Castiel, or of Bartholomew, who had ordered the deaths of dozens, but the blood of those who had merely wanted to be left alone, who had been compelled out of hiding only to fall victim to Metatron’s second-in-command. 

The God he loved, the God he served, would not have wanted this.

Metatron praises him when reports back, gives him pretty words about how his actions are saving the face of Heaven. He hears rumblings over the communication lines, whispers that Castiel is not the savior he purports to be, that refusing to join him is as bad as refusing Malachi and Bartholomew ever were. He hears whispers of Abaddon, of her slaughtering more angels and humans alike, and of how the humans Castiel fell to protect are responsible for her presence. He even hears whispers of how Leo, the young angel working for Castiel, is not to be trusted. He hears it all, waiting by the sigil, his angel blade in his hands.

“They have heard about it,” he tells Metatron at their next meeting. “Hannah grows suspicious of Castiel. Her followers call for him to present himself, to explain his actions. Some of them even demand that the Winchesters answer for their role in closing Hell.”

“Good,” Metatron replies, rubbing his hands together. “She’s the one, you know. Whatever Hannah decides, who she chooses to follow, that’s the one who will win in the end. But in order for it to be complete, we actually need Castiel. Where has the idiot been hiding, I wonder?”

Gadreel has wondered this himself, has even hoped for Castiel to appear, to put paid to all the rumors and rumblings Gadreel has disseminated. But Castiel has not shown himself, and though Gadreel can guess at the reason, the other angels cannot, and that just has fueled the whisperings even more. For if Castiel will only act through another, it is said, then what does he really plan for the retake of Heaven? 

“Castiel was left behind after my attempt on the prophet,” he points out to Metatron. “The humans would not have taken kindly to that.”

“True,” Metatron muses. “You’re right, he’s probably locked up in one of their little dungeons. All right, then, I need you to find him and bring him out. I need him to be there when Hannah discovers the truth about ardent Leo’s actions, and how they were ordered by champion Castiel. I need him to defend the Winchesters, because he will.” He chuckles. “Oh, he will.”

“I cannot enter that bunker, not in this vessel,” Gadreel argues immediately.

But, like always these days, he is lying.

“You’ll find a way,” Metatron says dismissively. “I have faith in you. Now go.”

Gadreel leaves, his thoughts awhirl. He cannot pretend, now, that allying himself with Metatron was the correct decision. Metatron’s vision of Heaven is no better than that of Bartholomew, or even Malachi. He has had no hesitation about killing angels, and he has only cheered the efforts of Abaddon to kill and maim the humans angels were sworn to protect, caring only that her actions solidify his position.

He thinks of Castiel, whose name he has sullied, who had wanted so much to help his human friends, and of Dean and Sam and Charlie, who risk themselves to fight against those who would seek to harm others. He thinks of Hannah, who fights to stop the slaughter, who is lied to again and again for her troubles, all for the sake of a story. He thinks of the blood on his own hands, and of the key he hid, those weeks ago. 

Perhaps, he thinks. 

Perhaps there is another option.

***

Sam spins around, raising his gun and aiming it in one movement. The man standing in the doorway to the dungeon is tall, with sleepy-looking eyes and a thin mouth set in a grim line. 

Sam’s never seen him before.

“Who are you?” he demands, flicking the safety off. 

Slowly, the man raises both hands, palms out, regarding them with the removed intensity Sam’s come to associate with angels. And if he’s an angel — well, there’s only one out there who would know how to bypass the securities on the bunker, and devil’s trap bullets won’t do a damn thing to stop him. “Dean,” Sam says, without taking his eyes from the intruder. “Is this—?”

“Gadreel,” Dean snarls.

Charlie appears behind him, panting. “I set up an alarm after the last time he broke in,” she growls, waving her phone. “It went off, but the bastard just pulled out a key and walked right past me.”

“What the hell do you want?” Dean demands.

“I wish to help,” Gadreel replies, his laser focus on Dean now.

“Like you tried to help Kevin?” Charlie practically hisses. Her hands are balled into fists, her eyes flashing. 

“That was a mistake,” Gadreel replies, glancing at her. “One I am glad to have failed to make.” He extends a glowing hand toward her, causing her to jerk away with a snarl and Dean to shout and raise his own gun. 

“No,” Castiel says, his eyes fixed on Gadreel. “No, Dean. Charlie, let him. He intends to help.”

Charlie freezes, her gaze darting from Castiel to Gadreel and back. Gadreel pauses, watching her. “May I?” he asks, and after a long moment she jerks her head in assent. Gadreel’s fingers brush the skin over her bandaged wound, a warm light emanating from them. Charlie lets out a breath and looks down at her arm. “It does not make up for my actions,” Gadreel says in a low voice. “But I would not have you in pain because of me.”

“Damn right it doesn’t,” Charlie mutters, backing away from him and into Sam, who clicks the safety back on — guns won’t do anything against Gadreel, if anything even needs to be done — and wraps one arm around her. 

“You okay?” he murmurs to her.

“He healed me,” she murmurs back, peeling back the bandage and showing him her arm. The knife wound she’d made is gone, replaced with a faint raised line of pinkish new skin. Sam stares at it for a long moment, then looks up at Gadreel, who is regarding them all with calm detachment, though Sam’s been around angels enough to see the turmoil lurking in his sleepy eyes.

“So what, you’ve had a change of heart?” Dean laughs humorlessly. “No longer Metatron’s bitch, are you?”

“I have changed my mind, yes,” Gadreel replies, bowing his head. “I was ordered to come here for Castiel, but—”

“So you are here for Metatron,” Dean snarls.

“No,” Gadreel says. “No, I am not. Metatron has made many promises, but he is no better than any other angel. He is no God. I have done nothing but lie and slay and allow others to be hurt following his orders, and that is not what I am meant for.” He turns to Castiel. “It is not what any of us were meant for, Castiel. We were meant to protect, to guard. Not to slaughter or to kill.”

“So you’re on our side now,” Sam says, mind whirling. An angel, willing to help them. If Gadreel means it, then—

Gadreel nods. “I will do what I can to protect this world, and I will help you save the humans in danger.” He holds both hands out again, his palms up, his expression actually pleading. “Please. If the demon knight is attacking them, there is not much time.”

Dean shakes his head. “No,” he says, gun still trained on Gadreel. “You’ve lied to us from the beginning, you—”

“Does it matter?” Sam asks, quietly. Dean turns to him, surprised. “Jody’s in trouble, Dean,” Sam says before Dean can say anything. “It’s a good six hours away by car, and Cas can’t help us. No one can, except an angel, and he—” he jerks his thumb at Gadreel, “—is offering. If he meant to hurt us, he could have done it by now.”

“He did heal Charlie,” Cas puts in.

Dean doesn’t lower the gun. “This could all be some trick of Metatron’s.”

“Are you willing to risk Jody on that chance?” Sam asks quietly.

Dean closes his mouth with a snap. Sam takes a deep breath, hoping that he’s not about to fuck this up, and turns to Gadreel. “You’ll take us to her?” he asks.

Gadreel nods. “Yes.”

Sam holds out his hand, and Gadreel takes it. His fingers are cool, his grip firm. “Dean?” Sam asks, glancing at his brother. Silently, Gadreel extends his other hand toward Dean.

“You’d better be right,” Dean mutters, and takes Gadreel’s hand.

***

The vampires converge on Abaddon, swamping her, snarling and snapping and burying her under the pile of them. Abaddon drops Alex, who scrambles across the floor away from the fray, ducking as Abaddon starts throwing the vampires off, one by one. The demon screams with laughter, sounding delighted by the melee, and for one precious moment everyone but Jody and Alex is distracted.

She grapples for Alex, pulling her towards that busted front door. “We need to go,” she hisses. “Now. Your ‘family’ isn’t going to keep her busy for long.”

Alex looks back, whispers something that might have been, “Mama,” then turns and follows Jody to the relative safety outside.

Jody heads for her patrol car, hoping that their luck will hold and nothing will stop them, but she’s stopped in her tracks by a low rumble. She turns to face the cabin, her family’s cabin, where she’d spent countless hours in the days before her son and husband had died, building memories. She sees it in terrible slow-motion, as it lights up from the inside, the remaining windows blowing out, smoke billowing out of every hole and crevice. 

Alex starts howling, calling names that Jody doesn’t know, while Jody herself stands stock still and just watches her cabin burn.

“Alex!”

They both turn to see the vampire woman, singed but otherwise unharmed, standing in the shade of some nearby trees.

“Mama!” Alex cries, and runs to her, sobbing and sniffling. “I’m sorry, Mama, I’m sorry I ran, but I just couldn’t do it anymore, I couldn’t—”

The vampire woman strokes Alex’s hair with a tenderness that surprises Jody. “Oh, baby girl, it’s my fault. It’s time for me to take you home, and it’s time that I make everything right again.”

“But Cody and Dale,” Alex sobs. “And Connor too. I got them killed. I did.”

“Shhh,” the vampire woman responds. “It’s all right. Everything is going to be all right. I’ve been putting this off longer than I should have, it seems. It’s time that you and I start our family over, just you and me.” The woman lifts Alex’s chin up in her hand, and turns her head towards Jody. “And look, you already brought your first meal.”

Alex goes still, her eyes wide. 

And Jody knows, she knows the vampire is faster than she is. She knows her machete is in the trunk of her car, and she knows there’s nowhere to run.

“Oh shit,” she says.

***

Dean, Sam, and Gadreel appear in the middle of chaos. Jody’s cabin is on fire, blazing in the morning light. Jody’s there with the girl Sam looked up for her, and there’s a vampire woman there as well, teeth out, stalking towards Jody like one of those big cats on the prowl. The sun hasn’t touched her yet, but Dean can’t imagine that it will make the vampire any less pissed off.

“Where’s Abaddon?” Sam asks, and as if summoned, she appears, stepping out of the blazing flames engulfing the cabin. Her hair is crackling around her, skin blackened and soot-stained, but she is whole and grinning like this is the world’s best fucking joke.

“You had to ask,” Dean growls.

Abaddon throws out her hands, throws Dean backwards into Jody’s car, throws Sam to the ground next to him and Jody into a tree. “Jody!” the girl cries, and Abaddon tosses her as well, splaying her across the windshield of Jody’s car as Gadreel steps forward, angel blade in hand. But even he only gets in one good swing before she tosses him back as well, hissing with rage. She’s bleeding, though, and by the look on her face the blow at least hurt. 

The vampire woman turns and leaps on Abaddon, shrieking about her daughter, and tears at her shoulder for an instant before Abaddon casually lifts her off and tears her head off her body.

“Mama!” the girl screams.

“Dean,” Sam wheezes, and gestures to Gadreel, who’s back on his feet, teeth gritted, angel blade out. In the instant that the vampire had Abaddon distracted, Gadreel had slipped around behind her. When she drops the body, he impales her on the blade, slicing through her until the silver tip pierces her chest.

“You!” she screams, blood burbling from her lips. 

“Go!” Gadreel shouts at them. “I will hold her!”

“Good idea,” Dean pants to Sam, dragging himself back to his feet. “Get the kid, I’ll grab Jody.”

Jody’s already up on her feet, scrambling for the car door. Sam scoops up the kid like she’s nothing and stuffs her into the passenger seat, then piles into the back with Dean. Jody starts the car, revs up the engine, and they peel out and away.

When Dean looks back, the smoke from the fire has blotted out Abaddon and Gadreel entirely.

“Now what?” Jody pants, glancing over her shoulder at them.

It’s a good question. Dean wishes he had an answer.

***

Her laptop beeps, and Charlie practically falls out of her chair spinning around to look. This place seriously needs some actual desk chairs, she thinks as she brings up the translation program. With wheels, the kind that spin around. These wooden chairs with arms are killing her, especially when she has to sit in one for more than a couple of hours.

But she forgets about desk chairs, or any kind of chair at all, when she sees what’s on the screen.

It’s the angel tablet. More accurately, it’s the text from the angel tablet, translated into something that actually kind of makes sense. Charlie grabs for the laptop, tapping a few keys until the translated text fills the screen. The text itself is hard to parse, a little like what she remembers of trying to analyze Shakespeare during the times she actually bothered to attend school. But she can understand it. Sure, it might take her five readings of the same sentence, but she can fucking well understand it.

“It worked,” she whispers, staring at the words _the ground_ (Earth, she assumes) _be neither above nor below but be beside the realm of heaven_. “It actually worked!” 

She whoops, leaping to her feet and starting to do a victory dance. “Dean!” she yells, excitement momentarily making her forget. Right, she thinks, stopping mid-leap. Dean and Sam aren’t here. Neither is Kevin, who would definitely appreciate this. No one is here at all, except Castiel, still locked up in the dungeon, and she’s hardly going to go tell him that she’s a fucking genius and they’re quite possibly saved. She debates calling Dean with the news, but she has no idea what he and Sam are doing with that damned angel, Gadreel or whatever, and besides, strictly speaking, she doesn’t actually have any news yet, given that she’s read exactly three sentences so far.

With a sigh she throws herself back in the chair and drags the laptop toward her. She can (and definitely will) celebrate later. Right now, she’s got a job to do. 

She makes a mental note to call Kevin later and tell him the good news, and starts reading.

“Angels carry blades, only way to kill them, yeah yeah,” she mutters to herself, scrolling through the file (it’s nearly ten thousand words, far longer than she would have guessed based on the size of the tablet, but she’s learned that when it comes to supernatural shit, sometimes you just have to roll with it), looking for anything about ways into Heaven.

Most of it is stuff they already know, or stuff that she’s pretty sure is irrelevant, at least for the moment. They don’t really need to know the exact structure of Heaven at this point, after all, not if they can’t actually get up there. Or beside there, whatever. 

“Come on,” she begs the screen. “Give me something!”

She finds what she thinks is the exile spell Metatron used, given that it lists a bunch of ingredients, including _grace of an angel_ and includes the word _exile_ at least five times in rapid succession. She makes a note of where that is (they might want to study it later, if it comes to that) and scrolls on.

_four from each of four banes, and words of entry will open the cage_

She leans forward, frowning at the next line. “Mouth cave wicked,” she murmurs. It’s gibberish, as far as she’s concerned. Something about it tickles at the back of her memory, but though she reads the lines roughly a hundred more times, she can’t remember what. Shaking her head, she skips down to where the translation picks up again.

_same rings four can gain entry to heaven_

_Rings._ She reads it again, and again, each time a little more slotting into place. She’s read this book, she realizes. She knows what this is about. Four rings, the four banes, a cage — “ _Swan Song_ ,” she gasps. The four rings of the horsemen of the Apocalypse, joined together to open the portal to the cage that trapped Lucifer and Michael. So that’s what ‘mouth cave wicked’ is, she realizes. It’s a rough translation of the Enochian words Sam recited to open the portal. “But this wasn’t in Enochian,” she mutters to herself, her heart pounding in her ears. But that doesn’t matter right now, because if the next line says what she thinks it does, if she’s right—

If she's right, the same four rings can open a portal to Heaven.

She grabs for her phone, her hands shaking in excitement, and stabs the number for Dean. It rings twice before there’s a click and then Dean answers, sounding even more gravelly than usual. “Charlie?” he asks. “You okay there?”

“I’m fine,” she gasps back. “I’m great, actually. Dean, it worked, I got the tablet translated!”

“It worked?” she hears Sam say in the background, followed by a murmuring of voices that sound too feminine to be either Sam or Dean. The Jody they’d mentioned? she wonders, about to ask, when Dean comes back on the line.

“What did you find out?” he asks.

“There’s a way in,” she tells him, jumping to her feet to pace around the table. “It’s like the cage, you know, Lucifer’s cage, that you opened with the four rings of the horsemen? You can open a portal to Heaven with them too. And,” she adds, as the thought strikes her, “you already have Death’s ring, right? When you summoned him to make that deal? So where are the other three? You didn’t have to give them back, I mean, you basically killed the other three horsemen so why would you—”

“We didn’t give them back,” Dean confirms, and Charlie jumps, literally jumps, with excitement.

“So it’ll work!” she cries. “If you can just get them too — you do still have them, right?”

There’s a pause, during which Charlie bends back over the table to peer at the words following the line about the rings. _gate realm heaven_ , she reads, frowning. Okay, so she’s pretty damn sure saying that won’t work. They'll have to put it into Enochian first, somehow, but Castiel’s a damn angel, he should be able to help with that. She hopes. “Dean?” she asks. “You do still have the other three rings, right?”

“Uh,” Dean says. “Kind of. We can get to them, yeah.”

“We’re not too far, actually,” she hears Sam say in the background.

“Where are they?” she starts to ask, just as light suddenly blazes throughout the room. She shrieks with surprise, turning her face away and covering her eyes. But the light fades almost as soon as it appears, and she turns back, her eyes narrowed, her hand already groping for the (very sharp, thank you very much) knife she’s kept with her at all times.

It’s a good thing too, because there, lying in a bloodied heap between the tables, is Gadreel.

“Charlie?” she hears Dean and Sam say together.

“Let me call you back,” she says. She thumbs the call off and shoves the phone into her pocket, then takes a few creeping steps forward, the tip of the knife resting against the back of her formerly injured arm. She’s half-hoping that she’s just imagining it, that Gadreel really didn’t just bypass all their security to muck up the floors they just cleaned, _again_. But no, it’s him all right, getting blood all over everything after nearly blinding her. “Nice,” she fumes, mentally cursing the warning system she spent hours putting into place. Of course, he didn’t come through the door this time, but still, she’d have liked a little damn warning. She still doesn’t trust him, healing her be damned.

Gadreel coughs, blood dribbling from his mouth and nose. “Castiel,” he grits out. “I must—” A wave of pain seems to spasm over him. His body contracts, curling into a ball, and despite herself Charlie feels a tiny stirring of what might be pity. She doesn’t drop the knife, though.

“Why are you here?” she asks his prostrate form. “Why aren’t you still with Sam and Dean?”

“They are safe,” Gadreel pants, slowly uncurling himself, his movements loaded with pain. Little flashes of light are playing over the blood-stained fabric covering his chest, she sees, cold trickling down her spine. “But I — I must speak to Castiel, and soon. Please, you must take me to him. It is urgent.”

Charlie hesitates, staring down at him. ”Why should I?” 

Gasping, Gadreel lifts his head and looks her straight in the eye. ”Because I am about to die.”

***

They ride there in Jody’s patrol car, Jody and Alex in the front, Sam in the back with Dean, his arms looped around Dean’s waist, Dean’s wrapped around his shoulders. Dean can kind of hear Alex making snuffling noises from the front, and he gets it, he really does. The vamps were her family, and it sucks to realize your family isn’t what you thought it was, Dean knows that, but he has his own issues. He has Sam in his arms, and no matter what Jody or Alex might think, he’s not letting go until they get to the salvage yard.

When they arrive, Dean’s surprised to see that it looks pretty much the same as it had the last time they were there. He’d expected more rust, somehow, or the hanging sign that reads Singer Salvage to have fallen down. The house is still a burned-out husk, and when he finally lets go of Sam long enough to get out and look around, Sam follows after him without hesitating.

“This sucks,” Sam says, his voice sounding as rough as gravel.

Dean nods wordlessly, and they move on towards the remains of Bobby’s home. It’s strange how unfamiliar it all looks, even as Dean can identify shapes and structures left behind by the fire. This used to be the kitchen, this was Bobby’s study, and there was the couch that Sam and Dean would sit on together and watch old movies and bitch about snacks while Bobby shook his head and jokingly threatened to kick them both out.

“I think the door is over here,” Sam says, and moves towards what used to be the basement stairway. The stairs are long gone, whatever was left of them after the fire gone from the rain and snow. They scramble down carefully to the concrete below, picking their way through fallen timbers and scrap and garbage. The panic room door is the first truly solid thing in the mess, and they both stop and stare for a moment. They haven’t been here since they moved the rings.

After Bobby... Just after, it was too hard.

“I’ll go,” Dean says, and the words feel so raw he thinks they’ve been scraped out of him. Even before, Sam never had good memories of the panic room, not after all of the times Dean had to lock him in and wait things out. So he leaves Sam outside, opens the door, and picks his way through the gloom. He finds the rings where they left them, inside a curse box and wrapped in a dirty piece of silk. The idea was to shield the rings from any supernatural big bad that was out there, level after level after level of protection.

He wraps them back up, tucks them into his pocket, and joins Sam outside. They scramble back up through the rubble and ruin, step out onto the remains of Bobby’s porch, and breathe in the clean air.

Dean’s phone rings, and when he picks it up, it’s Charlie. “We have the rings,” he says. 

“About that,” she replies. “I have bad news. Gadreel’s here, and he’s hurt, I mean really hurt, but that’s not the bad news. When he showed up I forgot I hadn’t told you yet… We also need the words to open the portal to Heaven.”

“They weren’t on the tablet?” Sam asks over Dean’s shoulder.

“They were, but they’re translated kinda Engrish-y, if you know what I mean. I think we need the Enochian version, but I’m not sure, not without the angel tablet here. I could ask Castiel, maybe?”

“Cas won’t know,” Sam says in a low voice. “If he did…”

“He’d have told us.” Dean bows his head. Sam was right, this does suck. “We’re headed back,” he says to Charlie. “Keep an eye on Gadreel, we may need him.” He hangs up, looks up at Sam, whose lined face says everything Dean can’t.

“Let’s go,” Sam rasps out.

They make their way back to Jody’s car, and when they get there, Jody and Alex have moved into the back seat. Alex has rough tear tracks running down her face, and her eyes are red and swollen. Jody’s too, Dean sees. She’d known Bobby too, has just lost her own place to fire. They’ve all lost, today.

Jody hands Dean the keys, wordlessly, and they begin the long drive back to the bunker in silence.

Sam puts his hand on Dean’s thigh and squeezes, gently, then starts to take his hand away. Dean catches it with his own and holds on. He kind of wishes that he and Sam had more time, time to be together, time to explore whatever this is that they have, but he’s glad that they took the time they did, that they got that much together, at least.

Fuck it, Dean thinks, and he holds Sam’s hand in his own for the whole six hours to the bunker. 

***

The door to the dungeon opens. Castiel sits up, squinting in the sudden flood of light. “Dean?” he asks, hopeful. Perhaps they have returned already. Perhaps they were successful, and his uselessness did not matter. Perhaps Dean has come to forgive him, finally.

But it’s not Dean framed in the doorway, light spilling around the darkened outline of his body. 

It’s Gadreel.

Castiel rises to his feet, concern and wariness warring with him. Gadreel appears injured, and badly; he is smeared with blood, his features twisted with pain as he hobbles forward, his limbs barely cooperating. Charlie helps him through the opening, her own face drawn tight with suspicion. “He asked for you,” she says to Castiel without taking her eyes from Gadreel. “He says he’s dying.”

“Dying?” Castiel repeats, fear striking his heart. “Are Dean and Sam—”

“Safe,” Gadreel coughs. “They escaped while I fought the Knight of Hell. But she—” He gasps for breath and collapses, suddenly, as if strings holding him up had suddenly been cut. And Castiel sees it then, the rip in his shirt, and the wound in his chest beneath, just under where his vessel’s heart would be, sparks of white light dancing on the edges. 

“She had an angel blade,” Castiel finishes for him.

Gadreel nods, his chest heaving. Blood soaks his shirt anew, and the flashes of light grow brighter, more distinct. He is close to death, too close for any to save him, even if they had the power. “It is too late for me,” he informs Castiel, his voice surprisingly steady. “But I will not die without doing all I can to give Heaven, and this earth, another chance.” He lifts one bloodied hand and touches his chest, just under the wound. “Take it,” he says, as the sparks of his flickering grace illume his fingertips. “Take it and use it before it is gone.”

Castiel recoils. “I can’t,” he protests.

“You can,” Gadreel insists. “My death is inevitable, now. But my grace need not die with me. Let the last of it go toward the protection of this earth.”

“Is that even possible?” Charlie breathes, looking back and forth between them. 

“Yes,” Castiel replies, reluctant. “An angel’s grace can be separated from him, by choice or by force. But,” he turns back to Gadreel, torn between wanting to help ease his passing and wanting to stay far away from his proffered gift, “I’m human now, Gadreel, and perhaps it’s best if I stay so. I have proven time and again that I can’t be trusted with power.”

Gadreel coughs again, his whole body spasming, and Charlie kneels, taking hold of his shoulders and steadying him. Castiel is absurdly grateful to her; it absolves him of having to do so. “It is not enough to last long,” Gadreel manages to say between gasps for air. “But it should heal you, perhaps even last you long enough to enter Heaven and confront Metatron. It may be enough to help you defeat him.”

“There is no way into Heaven, not anymore,” Castiel frowns.

“There is, actually,” Charlie says, glancing up at him. “It’s on the angel tablet. A back door into Heaven. Into a few places, actually. You just need—”

“—four rings,” Gadreel finishes. “The rings of the four banes of humanity, and the words to open the door.”

“And we have the rings, or we will soon, anyway,” Charlie continues. “Death gave his to Sam, and the other three, Sam and Dean’re bringing them back now.”

Castiel blinks, absorbing it. The rings of the Horsemen. The same rings they used to open Lucifer’s cage, to return him to captivity. He’d thought them tied specifically to the Cage, but he knows, as well as anyone, that there is always more underneath the surface. Could the rings open a door to Heaven as well? Could this truly be the answer they seek?

“But we don’t have the words,” Charlie is saying. She shakes her head sadly, her red hair swishing around her cheeks. “They’re there, in what Kevin wrote down, but I just have a bad translation, not the actual words. And without them, the rings are basically useless.” She looks at Castiel. “You wouldn’t happen to know them, would you?”

“I know the words,” Gadreel says.

Charlie stares at him, her mouth dropping open. “Shut _up_ ,” she says finally. “Really?”

Gadreel nods, his face twisting in pain. “I was the most trusted,” he says, sadly. “I will tell them to you.”

Charlie’s practically vibrating with excitement. “Hang on,” she says, and she helps Gadreel off the floor, lifting him until he is sitting on the cot next to Castiel, his back against the wall and his head supported by it. Then she wipes her hands on her jeans, pulls her phone from her pocket, and taps the screen a few times. “Okay, tell me. Slowly.”

Gadreel does, reciting the incantation syllable by syllable, waiting as Charlie enters each one into her phone. His voice is faint by the time they finish, the sparks of light along his wound growing dimmer. 

He’s close, now.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Charlie proclaims after she has tucked her phone safely away again. She’s bouncing on her feet, too excited to stand still. “This almost makes up for you trying to kill Kevin and all.”

Gadreel winces at that, closing his eyes and breathing hard through his nose. “Nothing will make up for that,” he murmurs. “But I can still do some good for others, before the end.” He turns his head, looking at Castiel again. “Take it,” he repeats. “Take it and do what I could not.”

Castiel shakes his head again. “I’ve done nothing but harm,” he says, quiet. 

“Do not fall into the same trap I did,” Gadreel replies. He sits up, his brow furrowing with pain, and looks directly into Castiel’s eyes. “I sat alone in that cell for thousands of years. I thought of nothing but clearing my name, and so when Metatron offered that to me, I foolishly accepted, and did as he asked so my cause would be realized. I let my desire for redemption blind me to the truth, which is that the only thing that matters is the mission given to us, protecting those who cannot protect themselves. The humans. Dean and Sam, Charlie, the woman and the girl Abaddon threatened… Kevin. I should have protected them all from the start. We should not allow our fears or self-absorption prevent us from fulfilling our mission. None of us is more than that, Castiel. Not I, and not you.”

He reaches out, grasping Castiel’s hand with his bloodied one, and holds on tight. “Accept this gift, Castiel. Accept it, because you must help protect them. It matters not that you are one of them now. Do not let your fears and self-doubt stand in the way. It is our duty.”

Castiel bows his head, wanting to argue. But Gadreel is right. There is no excuse to hide in this dungeon and allow others to take the risks, not when he is being offered the chance to take them first. “And Heaven?” he asks. ”If Metatron falls, Heaven will need guidance. Heaven will need a leader, and it can’t be me. Even if I take your grace…”

“Hannah,” Gadreel murmurs. “She was to be… Metatron always planned to turn her from you. She was to be the one the others would follow to his side. She will be the one to lead them now.”

Hannah. She’s a good choice, Castiel thinks. She was never as ambitious as others, never as quick to take initiative, but right now, Heaven does not need that. Heaven needs someone steady and capable, someone who believes in the worth of human lives, and Hannah can provide that.

The last of his resistance crumbles. What are his woes, compared to those Metatron will inflict if he does not act? What are his worries, if Dean and Sam and all those he cares for are lost in a battle he could have turned? What are his doubts, when all the world is threatened?

For the second time, Castiel looks at Gadreel and says, “Yes.”

Hissing with pain, Gadreel shifts until he can reach into his jacket. A moment later, he withdraws an angel blade, shining silver even in the low light, its length hastily polished clean. He holds it out to Castiel, his hand trembling. 

His own hand shaking, Castiel takes it. He looks at Gadreel, who lifts his chin and offers his throat. He thinks of Dean, fighting wars he cannot hope to win, and of Sam, who has sacrificed more than any human should. He thinks of Charlie, doing her best to make possible the impossible, and of Kevin, dropping everything to help when it’s required of him. He thinks of all the humans out there he has known, and the billions more he does not. 

“Please,” Gadreel whispers.

_This is for them._

Castiel lifts the blade.


	11. CHAPTER TEN

  
  
_another zealot with the weight of the fucking world_  


Dean’s hand is cramping by the time they make it back, but he doesn’t care. Even when they pull into the garage, when they pile out of Jody’s patrol car and Dean has to let Sam go, he can still feel the warmth of Sam’s hand left behind. But he straightens up and looks at Jody and Alex, both ragged and dirty and smeared with dried blood. He has a flash, all of a sudden, of waking up in that warehouse, blood everywhere, and his skin starts to crawl.

“We have the world’s most awesome showers here,” he tells them. “You two look like you need to spend some time getting cleaned up. Seriously. Take your time.”

“He’s right,” Sam adds. “The water pressure has ruined me for cheap motels forever. Now I demand quality and never-ending hot water. Like he said, take your time.”

“Thanks,” Jody says, and she corrals Alex off with her.

Dean turns to Sam, wanting to say something but not knowing what. The moment stretches out, the two of them staring at each other, not moving. This thing they have, it feels fragile, and Dean has a long enough history of fucking things up that he’s not sure how he wants to move next.

“Sammy,” he says, and stops.

“Dean,” Sam replies, his voice rough and thick.

“Charlie,” Charlie interjects. She comes up to them, waves a little wave, and then continues, “Were you two having a moment? Sorry to interrupt whatever it was, but we need you in the dungeon.”

Dean glances over at Sam, who nods, then tells Charlie, “Yeah, we’re coming.”

Charlie doesn’t explain anything, so Dean isn’t prepared when he walks in. He certainly doesn’t expect to find Gadreel’s dead vessel cooling on the bench, the ghostly shadow of ragged wings spread out around him. But when he looks at Cas, he has color back in his cheeks, and his cuts and bruises are gone.

Before Dean can ask, Cas looks at him solemnly, holds up an angel blade in explanation. “He offered me his grace,” Cas says. “I accepted his sacrifice.”

“You’re an angel again?” Sam asks.

But Cas shakes his head. “No. It healed me, it gave me strength, but I am not an angel. But it’s enough.”

“Enough for what?” Dean asks.

“Enough to stop Metatron.” Cas tucks the blade away under his coat. “If the back door into Heaven works, we can return the fallen angels and stop the killing. But once they have returned, they will need to be led.”

“Led by whom?” Sam asks. 

“Hannah. She is the best, and only, choice.” Cas rises to his feet. “All we need are the four rings of the horsemen.” 

Dean pulls the rings out of his pocket, stares at them glinting faintly in the dim light. He says, “We got them, but Charlie, I thought we didn’t have the words.”

“Gadreel knew them,” Castiel replies. “He told them to me — to us — before he died.”

“Have them on my phone,” Charlie says, waving it helpfully. 

“He left us the words and his blade,” Castiel murmurs. He looks up to Dean, his piercing eyes searing into Dean, pleading. “Let me go with you, Dean. Let me help stop Metatron’s and Abaddon’s reigns.”

It’s a shit idea, putting all of their eggs into one basket, all of their ammo into one gun. And part of him, part of him wants to say no, to leave Cas behind while he and Sam take on Metatron. They’ve lost so many lives, lost so many good people, and despite everything, all of the anger Dean has for Cas’s part in bringing the shitstorm down around their heads, he wants to keep him safe. But they need all the help they can get, and Cas knows Heaven, can navigate through the weirdness they experienced the last time they were there. So Dean nods. “All right,” he says, and his voice comes out a lot more raw than he expects.

Castiel turns then to Charlie, hands her his phone. “This has Hannah’s number saved. In case I do not return, you may find it useful.”

He starts to turn away, but Charlie grabs him in a hug. He stands there, all typical Cas awkwardness until she lets him go again.

“Be careful,” she says. “All of you.”

They’ve done this before. The words are different, but when Dean puts the rings together, they lock in place just like the last time. The only other difference is that when Dean drops the rings to form the portal, they fall sideways and land against the wall. The wall seems to break away under the rings, and light pours through the hole, harsh and blinding, like the glow of an angel.

“Cas?” Dean asks.

Cas nods, and takes the lead.

Just before he steps through, Dean turns and looks back at Charlie. “Hold down the fort, okay?” he asks her. “Keep Jody and Alex safe for us.”

“Till you get back,” she nods.

Dean hesitates, then nods back. “Till we get back,” he says, and follows Cas into the light.

He doesn’t know exactly what to expect. Their last time in Heaven, they were navigating their own memories, but as he looks around the twisting and winding stone hallways, he thinks that he’s never seen anything like this before. When he glances over at Sam, Sam catches his eyes and shakes his head. They’re in a different part of Heaven, Dean figures, behind the scenes.

“No one is here,” Cas comments. “This is Heaven’s command center, the scaffolding that holds together the parts that you have visited before. This is where God resided when He created the universe.”

Dean looks over his shoulder at Sam, who runs his hands across the smooth stone, his face calm but his brow furrowed. Dean wonders what it’s like for him to be here. Sam once believed the party line, might still believe it, in part at least. Sure, the angels are mostly dicks, and God is off on sabbatical, but these are still holy places.

Sam looks up at him, then. Their eyes connect, and Sam shakes his head, just a little.

Not the time, Dean thinks. Later, when everything’s over... But he can’t let himself think that far ahead. They have a job to do, and he needs to be in the game for it.

So he pushes it out of his head, turns his attention back to Cas and the curving hallways and the fact that everything is so damned quiet and creepy and empty. They come to a winding staircase, and they start to climb for what feels like hours. Dean keeps expecting Cas or Sam to say something, but they don’t, and he doesn’t break the silence himself.

When they reach the top of the stairs, Dean looks back down, sees the spiral go down for what looks like forever, until the stairs blur away into shadows. At the top, there’s a large door, made of dark wood with a heavy latch. Cas looks back to Dean, who nods, and Cas lifts the latch and pushes the door open.

Inside is an office, something that the Men of Letters would have liked, with a warm fireplace and plush leather chairs and a broad desk made of the same wood as the door. The desk chair swivels around, and like a Bond villain, Metatron is there, smirking. “I’ve been expecting you,” he says. “You’re a little early, I wasn’t planning on this for a few more months.” He sighs expansively, leans back in his chair. “But I suppose it’s time for the final showdown between good — me — and evil — you.”

Cas leaps across the desk, angel blade shining in the firelight. He catches Metatron in the shoulder with it, but Metatron appears unaffected. No flashes of light, not even any traces of pain on his face. Metatron tsks and shakes his head, shoving Cas aside, and retrieves the blade from his hands. “Those don’t work on God,” he chortles. “And I appreciate the effort, I really do. See, now when I let in those who are faithful to me again, and I tell them the tale of how you broke into Heaven and attacked poor defenseless me, it will be the honest truth.” 

He gets to his feet, all casual swagger that makes Dean wish he could punch his face repeatedly. Metatron steps up to where Cas is sprawled on the floor, lays a kick into him that leaves Cas coughing and choking. “But you’re ruining my story, and you’ll have to pay for that,” Metatron says. He leaves Cas on the floor, and saunters up to where Sam and Dean are standing, reaches up and grabs Sam by the throat. “Maybe I should let Death off the hook a little, eh? I really only need Castiel and his favorite human to take the fall. Too many characters can drag down a good story, after all. This one can be cut.”

Sam makes a sound, deep in his chest, and flails hard at Metatron. Metatron doesn’t even blink, but squeezes his hand tighter around Sam’s neck.

_Sammy can’t breathe._

Dean’s own breath catches in his throat. For a terrible moment, he’s paralyzed, remembering Sam struggling under the pillow, fighting hard like he’s fighting Metatron now. Dean can’t move, can barely breathe himself, and he knows that he’s going to watch Sam die again, but this time it’ll stick, because it’s Metatron doing it.

“The angel tablet!” Castiel croaks. “It’s what is giving him his power! That’s really why he wanted it. Smash it!”

That breaks the hold the scene has on Dean. He rushes to the desk, ripping through piles of loose paper, shoving the typewriter onto the floor, tearing through desk drawers looking for the tablet. Metatron would keep it close, he thinks. He wouldn’t trust it to be anywhere but at his side.

Castiel pulls himself from the floor, gets up and rushes Metatron again, yanking on his hair, trying to loosen his grip on Sam. It works; Metatron turns to swat Castiel away, and Sam reels backwards, gasping for air. Dean looks up, relieved, and watches Metatron shrug off Cas and drop the angel blade in the process. Sam lunges for it before Metatron can, jumps up and runs him through, until the silver tip is sticking out of Metatron’s back.

Metatron shakes his head sadly. “Good shot, but it still won’t work.” He pulls the blade out of his own gut, turns it around and draws his arm back, ready to strike. “Editing’s a bitch!” he snarls.

“Sammy!” Dean shouts. He wants to throw himself in its path, to protect Sam from the blade, but he’s too far away.

Cas isn’t.

He throws himself in front as Metatron strikes, stays pinned there for a moment while Sam staggers backwards, and then slides off the end of the blade. There’s blood everywhere, and ghostly bits of glowing grace are floating up from the wound. Metatron doesn’t seem too perturbed as Cas falls to the ground, choking and coughing out blood. “It won’t kill you for long,” he says, “but long enough.” He pulls the angel blade free and turns to Sam, with a grimace. “Thanks to your meddling, now I have to rewrite my entire ending. You know how long I worked on that? How hard?”

Dean’s fingers find a familiar stone surface, and when he looks down, he finds that the angel tablet is right there under his hands. He picks it up, carefully so that Metatron won’t notice just yet, and lifts it high above his head.

“Your story sucks,” Dean snaps, and throws the tablet to the floor.

There’s a loud crack as the tablet breaks into pieces, and blinding light blazes from Metatron’s wound, so bright it blinds Dean. There’s a shrieking whine, high enough and loud enough that the room shakes, and Dean has to clap his hands over his ears to blot it out. Everything is white light and white noise and pain, and then it all subsides. When he can see again, Metatron is dead, his eyes sightless, his stubby wings flared around him. 

Dean rushes for Sam, grabs him in a hug, runs his hands all over to make sure he’s really still there and whole. Sam grabs Dean by his shirt, hauls him in close and presses his face into the crook of his neck, like he used to do when he was still little. 

“You all right?” Dean asks.

Sam nods against his neck, his breath heaving. After a moment, he pulls back. “Cas!”

Sprawled on the floor is Cas. Blood is everywhere, his coat, his face, the floor — and as he coughs, weakly, more blood bubbles between his lips. He doesn’t have much time left, even with Gadreel’s grace. “Death is no longer bound,” he manages. He touches Dean’s face. “I am glad to have known you, Dean Winchester.” He reaches for Sam, touches his face, too. “And you as well, Sam.”

And then, just like that, he’s gone.

***

It’s been too long.

Charlie paces, wishing she had something to do with her hands. But computers won’t help; hacking can’t do anything; there’s not a damn thing she can do now but wait and pray to a god she doesn’t believe in. She almost laughs at the sheer absurdity of that thought. 

“You could sit down,” Jody says to her. She and Alex both showed up a few minutes after Dean and Sam and Castiel had left, their hair wet and their eyes tired. They both seem nice enough (though Alex has barely said more than two words, not that Charlie blames her), but Charlie isn’t really too focused on being social right now. 

“It’s been over an hour,” she frets.

“How long do you think—?” Jody starts to ask, but she stops when Alex grabs her arm, her heart-shaped face alarmed. “What is it, sweetheart?”

“Someone’s here,” Alex hisses.

Charlie starts to remind her that they’re in a bunker spelled against everything one can imagine (except for angels who know the way in already, but the only two who do are either dead or currently in Heaven), but then she feels it too. 

The walls are shaking.

“What the hell?” Charlie exclaims. She reaches out, pressing her palm flat against the brick. “This is a damn bunker, it was built to withstand freaking bombs!” But there’s no mistaking the tremors she feels, or the groaning sound as the mortar shifts. The lights are rattling now, the ones hanging from the ceiling swaying overhead. One of the lamps on the tables topples, sending a loud crash reverberating around the room. A couple of books follow, tumbling from their shelves and hitting the floor with muffled thumps. 

Charlie starts to go for her phone, but thinks better of it. The laptop will have a better view of whatever’s going on out there. She yanks her hand from the wall and bolts across the library, weaving around the tables and avoiding falling books as she makes for the map room. “Come on!” she yells over her shoulder, but she doesn’t look back to make sure Jody and Alex are following. Jody will make sure they get there in one piece, she knows that. 

She bursts into the room and skids to a halt next to the laptop she jury-rigged a connection to the bunker’s electrical system with and taps on the scrollpad. Stupid thing failed to alert her, again, she thinks, irritated. But at least the cameras are working; the screen comes up, showing her two different angles of the door that leads to the outside. 

A woman stands directly in the center of both, facing one and profiled in the other, hands on her hips and dark red hair framing a lovely, if terrifying, face. Flanking her, Charlie can just make out the shapes of dozens of human figures, their faces tipped up toward the plant overhead, their eyes all a uniform shade of beetle-black.

An army.

“That’s her,” Jody says in a hushed voice behind her. She reaches over Charlie’s shoulder, stabbing a finger at the screen. “That’s Abaddon, the Knight of Hell. She’s found us.”

“And demons too,” Alex adds, her gray eyes wider than Charlie’s ever seen them. “Way more than she had before.”

“They’re still just demons,” Charlie replies, riveted at the sight of all of them. They’re standing perfectly, inhumanly, still, except for the woman. Abaddon. She raises her hands and flings them out, fingers hooked, and another tremor shakes the walls around them. The map table lights up behind them, and the wail of alarms pierces throughout the room. Charlie winces, then continues, her voice shaking, “This place is warded to the gills against demons, and they don’t have a key. We just have to wait until Sam and Dean and Cas get back, and then Abaddon’s history. We’ll be fine.” She’s not entirely sure she believes that.

Abaddon gestures again, and there’s another dull boom. Even the floor shakes this time, and the chairs all roll several inches, one of them colliding with Alex as she steals her way into the room. Charlie just manages to grab her laptop before it falls.

“Are you sure it’s warded against a Knight of Hell?” Jody asks wryly.

“It should be,” Charlie replies, weakly, trying not to think about the fact that she’s pretty sure it was Abaddon who took out the Men of Letters in the first place, all those years ago.

“She’s saying something,” Alex says.

Charlie blinks and looks back at the screen. Alex is right; Abaddon’s shouting something, from the looks of it. She starts to put the laptop back up on the machinery, changes her mind, and hands it to Jody instead. “Hold, please?”

Jody holds it still as Charlie quickly types a few things and clicks on the volume. 

“—losing patience!” Abaddon’s voice blares over her laptop’s internal speakers, sounding tinny and way too close for comfort. “You have two choices. Either you come out and join my army, one way or another, or I just kill you right here. Slowly.” She smiles then, and takes a step toward the camera Charlie hid right over the top of the door. Charlie lets out a squeak as Abaddon’s face suddenly fills the right half of the screen, her eyes flipping to black as she growls, “All the wards and devil’s traps and salt in the world won’t mean anything if we bring the walls down on you.”

On the left, Charlie sees all the demons simultaneously raise their arms. The resulting shake to the bunker is so bad that several of the bookshelves in the library collapse with a deafening crash, spilling books over the floor as the lights swing so wildly overhead that one of them shorts, sending sparks showering down over the room. In the map room, the chairs all topple, and the map table itself gives a high-pitched whine and then burns out, sending up a worrying plume of smoke in the process.

All the lights go dark.

Emergency lighting kicks in a moment later, bathing them all in an eerie red glow. Charlie can see Alex shiver and take a step closer to Jody, whose eyes are wide, the whites gleaming even in the dim light.

“On the other hand,” Charlie says, grabbing the laptop from Jody and snapping it shut, “maybe we should get out, like, now.”

“And join her army?” Jody demands. “I’d rather stay in here and die than let that bitch take my soul.”

“We can try to escape,” Alex says, sounding far away. But she’s looking right at them, her eyes focused on the two of them, not looking past them like she usually does.

Jody rakes her hands through her already-messy hair. “And if they catch us?”

Alex shrugs. “I’ve seen guns here,” she replies. “Knives too. We take some with us. They catch us, we kill ourselves before they can.” Creepy kid, Charlie thinks. But that reminds her of something.

“I have devil’s trap bullets,” she tells Jody, who raises her eyebrows. “If you shoot a demon with one it locks them in place, they can’t move at all. You’re a sheriff, right? You can shoot her, and it might trap her long enough for us to get the hell outta dodge. So to speak.”

“How?” Jody frowns. 

“There’s a garage,” Charlie replies, tucking the laptop under her arm and starting to feel her way out of the map room, “and cars with gas—”

“No, I mean, I’m not a good enough shot to pull it off unless I’m pretty close, and if we get close enough we’re either dead or demons. Besides,” Jody adds as another quake rocks the room, sending her, Charlie, and Alex all into the walls, “you can’t have enough bullets for all of them.”

That’s true, Charlie has to admit. There are a couple dozen of the devil’s trap bullets, sure, but there are a hell of a lot more demons than that out there. “Maybe if we rigged something, like a, a salt bath, or—” she starts, then stops. She’s remembering something she found on one of her many prowls around the storage rooms of this place while waiting for the translation program to grind its way through another section.

“I have an idea,” she says, breathless.

Getting through the bunker without tripping or getting smacked by flying light fixtures or books is like being stuck in a live-action version of a video game, albeit one with shitty graphics thanks to the dim red lighting, but a few minutes later all three of them are crowded around the door leading to the outside. Abaddon is on the other side of it, twenty feet away tops, and they can hear her actual voice now, shouting threats in between shakes of the walls.

“I don’t think this is going to help,” Jody says doubtfully, looking down at the antique loudspeaker she and Alex are carrying. “Exorcisms don’t work on Abaddon.”

“Maybe not on her,” Charlie says. “But they’ll work on that army of hers.”

Jody shakes her head, dubious. “They don’t really work on other demons either, much, there’s nowhere for them to go. They just smoke out until it’s done and then go right back in.”

“So we won’t let it be done,” Charlie grins. She finds the exorcism Sam recorded onto her phone, selects the audio file, and emails it to herself. Then she shoves her phone in her pocket and opens the laptop she still has tucked under one arm. If she’s going to leave something behind, it’s going to be that, and not her phone. She needs her phone, dammit.

Assuming, of course, that they survive.

The file has arrived already, and Charlie brings it up, then sets it on an infinite loop. “Okay,” she says, as Sam’s voice reciting Latin comes out over the speakers. “Now you two go, I’ll set this up and then open the door.”

“I’ll do it,” Jody says immediately. “You take Alex and head for the garage. We’re taking your car, right? Mine’s still outside.”

Charlie pauses, then swears. “No, we can’t, mine’s outside too.” Why the hell didn’t she put it in the garage? She programmed the damn door to open from her cell phone and everything. But it’s too late now, and besides, they’ve got other things to worry about. “Look, I’ll be fine,” she says, hoping fervently she’s right. “There are so many traps on this door, which I’m pretty sure is iron, by the way, that they won’t be able to reach me. I’m not going to open it all the way either, just enough to get the loudspeaker out. And,” she adds, seeing the determination to protect flaring to life in Jody’s eyes, “I know the way to the garage better than you, so I can run it faster. You two go get a car started and waiting, okay? There are at least three in there, and I’m pretty sure they’re gassed up. Keys should be on the panel to the left.”

Jody hesitates, then gives her a terse nod. “Come on, Alex,” she says gruffly. Alex quietly falls into step behind her, though she does give Charlie a long, searching look over her shoulder as she does.

Before she and Alex leave, though, Jody turns back and gives Charlie a brief, fierce hug. Charlie hugs back, her eyes unexpectedly filling with tears. It’s almost like being hugged by her mother, just for that moment. “I’ll see you in the garage, okay?” she whispers as she lets go. 

“You’d better,” Jody replies. She and Alex link hands, and then they’re gone.

Charlie unlocks all the physical protections on the door and then kneels, arranging the loudspeaker so that it picks up the sound from the laptop speakers. Sam’s voice, quiet at first, suddenly blares out so loud Charlie shrieks and falls on her ass. “Perfect!” she declares, and scrambles back up to her feet.

Now for the door.

Barely breathing, Charlie grasps the handle and opens it a crack. She ducks instinctively, but other than Abaddon’s voice saying, “Well, well, looks like someone’s had a change of heart,” nothing happens. Quick as she can, Charlie shoves the mouth of the loudspeaker through the gap and makes sure it’s picking up the exorcism.

Then she peeks around the doorjam.

Outside, Abaddon growls with rage as all the demons ranged out behind her start throwing up their heads, black smoke pouring out of their mouths. One by one, they collapse, their bodies falling like their strings have been cut, swirls of black smoke roiling overhead. “I’ll bet you think this is clever!” Abaddon snarls at the door, her hair practically crackling with fury. Behind her, the last of her army falls, just as Sam’s looped voice begins the exorcism again.

“I do!” Charlie yells, and bolts for the garage.

She finds Jody and Alex waiting in one of the little forties numbers, Jody’s hands clamped on the oversized wheel and the engine puttering loud enough to almost mask the sound of the walls shaking. “Isn’t this a little small?” Charlie pants as she climbs up into the front seat next to Alex. There’s a back seat, sure, but it’s so tiny she isn’t sure she could even fit in it, and she’d have to make Jody and Alex get out before she could even try, so fuck it. At least she’s not trying to cram in here with Sam and Dean, she thinks as she yanks the door closed. 

“It had gas and keys in the ignition,” Jody replies, grim. “Now, how do you get out?”

Charlie has to practically twist herself into a pretzel to get to her phone, but once she has it, she taps a few commands and then points over Jody’s shoulder as the secret tunnel suddenly yawns open, the doors grinding apart until they can see sunlight filtering in. “Good, it’s still working,” Charlie says in relief, shoving her phone in her pocket and then wedging herself back into place. “Are you guys ready?”

Alex nods and hands her a gun. “I got these,” she says simply. She’s holding another gun and a knife with a wickedly curving blade that Charlie’s sure she saw in Sam’s room. Charlie can’t help but be impressed at her resourcefulness. “I checked and they’re loaded.”

“With devil’s trap bullets,” Charlie confirms. All the guns are loaded with them now; she’s had a lot of free time on her hands since she came to the bunker, after all. She turns and hastily rolls the window down on her side, wincing as it screeches out a sound like nails on a chalkboard. Alex gives her a strange look, but then understanding dawns on her face. She lifts the other gun and cocks it, just as Charlie does the same.

“Drive,” Charlie says.

The car jerks forward as Jody hits the gas. The old Ford (Charlie thinks it’s a Ford, anyway) fishtails a little as Jody turns it toward the tunnel, but then the tires catch and they’re driving full-out, or what Charlie assumes is full-out for this car.

“Where does this come out?” Jody yells over the sound of the engine. They’re in the tunnel now, heading toward a bright square framed with green leaves. It comes out near the road, Charlie remembers, though there’s a few hundred feet of just dirt until they reach it. Not exactly secret if the way to the tunnel is paved, after all.

“On the other side of the bunker!” Charlie yells back as they burst out into the sunlight. “So there’s a chance she won’t even notice—”

She stops mid-sentence. She’s wrong. There’s no chance at all.

Abaddon’s standing on the road in front of them.

Jody turns the wheel and hits the brakes, and they skid to a stop several yards short of the pavement. Dust blows in Charlie’s open window, and she raises her gun, her hands trembling. Even from this far away she can see the wicked smile on Abaddon’s face, can hear it clearly when the demon yells, “Not so clever after all, are you?” 

“Cover your ears,” Alex says softly, and Charlie just manages to clap her free hand over the one closer to Alex before Alex fires.

The bullet hits the ground in front of Abaddon’s feet, sending up a plume of dirt. Abaddon’s smile broadens as she begins to walk toward them, her hands curling into claws. Alex fires again, and again, her hands steady, and her third shot hits Abaddon in the shoulder. But though Abaddon snarls at them, she doesn’t stagger, and she doesn’t stop moving forward. The bullet must have gone through her, Charlie thinks, numb.

“I’m out,” Alex says finally, and Charlie takes over, firing quickly, trying her best to aim true. She hits Abaddon twice, in the arm and just above the hip, but neither of them stops her. She just keeps coming, twenty feet away, then fifteen, then ten. Jody throws the car into reverse, increasing the distance between them again, but it’s just delaying the inevitable.

Nothing can stop her.

“We’re gonna die,” Charlie whispers.

“We are,” Jody agrees, her voice soft. “I’m sorry, both of you.”

“It’s not your fault,” Alex says. “I’m glad I’ll die with you.” She tosses her gun into the back and picks up the knife, its blade flashing in the light. “Do we do it now?”

The car slows as Jody brakes again, the engine whining as she changes gears. Charlie looks through the windshield at Abaddon, then at Jody and Alex. 

“Let’s go down fighting,” she says.

Jody slams her foot on the gas, flooring it, and the car leaps forward. Charlie grabs for the handle as they careen across the dirt toward Abaddon, who throws back her head and laughs. She’s still laughing when the car smashes into her, sending it into a tailspin across the ground. “Son of a—!” Jody yells as the world turns into a blur around them. Charlie’s head smashes into the window frame, but she barely registers the pain. 

“She’s still there!” Alex shouts. Charlie wants to ask how the hell she can tell, but then Jody wrests control of the car back and Charlie can see it for herself. Abaddon’s still standing; her hair is mussed and there’s a giant black mark across her clothes from the impact, but she’s still on her feet. 

She’s even still laughing.

“Nice try,” she chuckles, pulling out two slim blades Charlie immediately recognizes as angel blades. 

“Thought she didn’t want to kill us,” Jody mutters. The whine of the engine abruptly cuts out, though Charlie isn’t sure if Jody just turned the car off or if hitting Abaddon killed it. She’s betting on the second of the two, though.

“Guess we’re just that lucky,” she tries to joke, but her voice hitches and she nearly starts sobbing right there.

To her surprise, she feels Alex’s hand touch her on the arm. Her touch is gentle, warmer than Charlie expected. “She won’t get the chance,” Alex murmurs. She squeezes Charlie’s arm and then lets go, leaving a streak of blood behind.

The knife, Charlie thinks.

“I’ll do it, sweetheart,” Jody says softly. She takes the knife from Alex, who doesn’t resist, and kisses her on the brow. “Don’t look, either of you.”

“I’ve had some trouble killing your friends,” Abaddon’s voice rings out, and it’s close now. Too close. “So I’m going to have to make doubly sure you three are dead.”

Charlie looks up to see her standing there, not five feet away, and the tears spill over. “Hurry, Jody,” she whispers.

“I’m thinking we’ll start with exsanguination,” Abaddon muses, tapping the flats of the blades against her thighs. “And then I’ll cut you into pieces, scatter them across the fields, and burn the whole fucking place to the—”

She cuts off with a sound of surprise, and Charlie looks up to see a black smear rippling into existence. She hastily wipes her eyes and looks again, in time to see the black resolve itself into the figure of a man, tall and gaunt, with burning eyes and a cane clasped in the fingers of one spidery hand.

“Jody!” she gasps, cold washing over her. A moment later Jody’s hand grabs hers, just as Alex wraps both her hands around theirs.

“I see him,” she whispers.

“You!” Abaddon snarls, her face twisting with rage, and she raises the angel blades and swipes them both at the man. But they pass through him with as much effect as if they were made of air, and Abaddon staggers back, a trickle of fear passing over her features. “You can’t,” she pants. 

“Can’t I?” the man asks, and Charlie shivers, nameless dread coiling around her spine, weighing down her limbs. We’re not supposed to get this close, she thinks faintly. We’re not supposed to see him like this.

Except at the end.

Abaddon starts to say something else, to plead or to challenge, Charlie doesn’t know. The man reaches out his hand then, his fingers grasping onto Abaddon’s shoulder, his face utterly impassive as Abaddon begins to howl. Light flashes throughout her body, a sickly golden yellow that outlines the shadows of her borrowed bones. Her mouth opens, and she screams, light blazing from her mouth and her eyes, and with a shriek Charlie squeezes her own eyes shut and ducks her head. Even with her eyes closed she can still feel the light stabbing through her lids, and she can still hear the demon’s screaming, echoing in her skull. Jody’s and Alex’s hands clench around hers, and the screaming goes on and on and on.

Then, suddenly, everything goes quiet.

Gasping for breath, Charlie lifts her head and risks opening one eye. Abaddon’s body lies on the ground in front of them, head wrenched to the side, sightless eyes staring, limp fingers splayed over the handles of the fallen angel blades. There’s no trace of the man in black, other than what’s left of the once-proud Knight of Hell.

Without a word, the three of them open the doors of the car and spill out, not taking their eyes from the broken body in front of them. Charlie half-expects it to be a trick, for Abaddon to get up and kill them with a smile, but she knows what she saw. She knows what she felt.

She knows who that man was.

“Dean,” she gasps, “ _Sam_ ,” and she turns and runs.

***

The portal closes behind Sam and Dean, and they go sprawling forward onto the floor. Dean gets to his feet first, and reaches down to pull up his brother as well. When he looks around, he sees the others running up to meet them.

“Dean!” Charlie flings her arms around his neck, holding tight. Dean gasps for air but doesn’t try to get away. He understands. Jody grabs Sam hard, judging from the surprised wheeze, but when Dean looks over at them, he sees that Sam is holding her just as tight. Alex hangs back a little, looking out of place and awkward, so Dean peels himself from Charlie’s grasp and pulls her into a gentle, tentative hug. She’s stiff in his arms, but she doesn’t pull away.

“Thanks,” he tells her.

“For what?” she asks.

For staying, he thinks, for giving Jody something else in her life to fill the void after her kid and husband and Bobby were all gone. But as he lets her go again, he just smiles and shakes his head, not really having a good enough answer for her.

“Wait,” Charlie says. “Where’s Cas?” 

Dean doesn’t answer. He just bows his head. He hears Sam, saying softly, “He’s gone,” and it’s too much, too raw.

Charlie lays her hand on Dean’s arm and gently tugs at him, leading him over to one of the sitting areas in the library. They all sit down, and Dean listens to the others talk about everything that happened, about Abaddon’s siege, about Death coming for her, about the attack on Heaven, everything. 

And Dean thinks about Cas. This time, he thinks, there’s not going to be a resurrection. They’ve long since run out of miracles, and the fact that only one of them died this time is still a little on the amazing side. But still, Cas was Dean’s friend, the one who saved him from Hell, the one who tried to get Sam out as well, who betrayed them and then asked for forgiveness, who fell from grace, lost his grace, lost his memory and lost himself, all for Dean.

Dean hopes that this time, Cas has some measure of peace. 

“So it’s over,” Charlie says. “All of it.” 

“Yeah,” Dean says, and she looks over at him like she’s startled.

She says, “We have to tell Kevin and Linda. It’s safe for them now. They can come out of hiding and come back, and I can make Kevin tea and Linda can make slightly creepy comments about me dating him, and—” 

“There are still demons,” Sam points out. “We still need to take the rest of them out, and we don’t know if we got all of the soul factories.”

“But without Abaddon in control,” Jody replies, “it should be a lot easier. My experience with the demons that are left here is that they’re not really leadership material. Plus they’re disorganized, which gives us an upper hand.”

Dean holds out the demon-killing knife to her on his open palm, an invitation. He feels, he doesn’t know, like he’s trying to pass the torch or something. She takes it from him, carefully, and sets it on the table next to her, next to the angel blade Sam brought back from Heaven. Dean can feel Sam’s eyes on him, but he ducks away from it. “That should help, too,” he explains. “Best used against a demon that’s wearing a corpse. It takes out the demon and the meatsuit at the same time.”

“There are two angel blades outside with Abaddon too,” Charlie says. “Speaking of, what about the angels? Can they get back? With Metatron gone, is Heaven open for business again?”

“We have the rings,” Sam replies, “in case they can’t. We can get Hannah’s faction in to start the cleanup, do whatever angel things they need to do to make Heaven, uh, Heaven again.” They keep talking, arguing logistics about getting the angels back or some bullshit like that. It’s just words, meaningless crap that, in the end, doesn’t fucking matter.

Dean is sick of this.

He stands up abruptly. “We can worry about that shit later. We all need rest. Sam and I are gonna go, uh. We’re gonna go.” He hauls Sam up out of his seat and drags him, sputtering, out of the room, while the others stare after them. His ears are burning when he gets Sam back to his room, but he doesn’t care.

“You okay?” Sam asks.

“Shut up,” Dean replies, and grabs Sam’s face in his hands, pulling him forward until their mouths are lined up. “No more talking.” Their mouths crash together, lips bruising, teeth colliding, and Dean needs Sam so much that his entire body aches for it. He needs this, need to blot out everything in the heat of Sam, to lose himself in the sweet friction.

Sam pulls him down onto the bed on top of him, pulling at his shirts and his jeans, peeling them out of their clothes as fast as possible, hands scrabbling at his back, pulling him closer. Dean yanks Sam’s pants down, shoves his boxers out of the way, wraps his hands around Sam’s thick cock and listens to the strangled whine that escapes from him.

“Dean,” Sam gasps. “Please.”

“I got you,” Dean whispers against his skin. He opens Sam up with two lubed fingers, slots himself in until they’re flush, until he’s snug inside of Sam. Sam holds onto him, holds Dean’s face in his giant hands as they move together. He keeps his eyes fixed on Dean, his cheeks flushed, eyes dark and flinty, until they reach the precipice together. Sam’s eyes flutter shut, and he goes rigid under Dean, coming in sticky streaks between them.

Dean pulls Sam up towards him, buries his face in his brother’s hair, gasps his name and follows Sam over the edge. They lie together, panting, sated, and then they sleep.

When Dean wakes up again, Sam’s there. They lie in each other’s arms and breathe in shared air.

“It’s over,” Sam whispers. 

Dean thinks about the rings, still stuffed in the pocket of his jeans that are currently in a pile on the floor. He doesn’t want to get up, doesn’t want to leave this safe bubble with Sam, but they have an appointment to keep. “Not yet.”

***

Sam closes his eyes and rests his cheek against Dean’s collarbone. The image of the rings lingers though, imprinted on his mind. “I know,” he murmurs. “I know we have to. But… let’s wait. Until everyone’s gone.”

Dean is silent for a long moment. His fingers wander through the hair at the nape of Sam’s neck, and Sam wants to keep this moment too, wants this to be what he sees when he closes his eyes. The two of them, together, Dean relaxed and warm and his. He wants to keep it close, hold onto it for every second he can. 

Because soon they’ll have to face what he’s known all along. 

“All right,” Dean agrees finally. “We’ll wait.”

Jody and Alex are the first to leave, later that morning. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a job to get back to,” Jody smiles, giving first Dean and then Sam a warm hug. He could’ve gotten used to this, Sam thinks as he hugs her back, his chest aching. 

“Take care of yourself, Jody,” he says as he releases her, and if there’s a hitch in his voice, she doesn’t seem to notice. 

“They don’t have jobs,” Charlie quips as Jody hugs her next. “Neither do I, right now, actually.”

“Yes, you do,” Jody says wryly. “It was good meeting you, Charlie. All of you, come visit me soon, okay? Help me finish taking out these damned soul factories.”

“We will,” Dean promises, his voice rough. Sam just nods, unable to say the words. Jody smiles and then nods to Alex, who’s hovering awkwardly behind her. 

“Bye,” Alex says to them, tucking her long hair behind her ears. Sam holds out his hand to her, and after a moment, she takes it, her cool fingers closing over his.

“You’ll be okay?” Sam asks her. He knows it’s a stupid question, given what she’s been through, but he has to ask. There won’t be a later, not for them.

Alex looks at Jody, her face solemn. “Jody says I can stay with her. So, maybe. One day.” She shakes Dean’s hand too, and then hugs Charlie, to everyone’s surprise, including Charlie’s. “Thanks,” she murmurs into Charlie’s hair.

“You’re welcome,” Charlie replies, awkwardly patting her on the back.

Alex lets go of her and follows Jody out the door without a backward glance. Sam, Dean, and Charlie gather in the doorway and watch as the two of them climb into Jody’s car, still parked on the street outside the bunker where Dean left it. Was that only yesterday? Sam thinks, unable to stop himself from reaching out to lay a hand on Dean’s arm. A moment later, Dean’s hand covers his, his fingers rough and familiar, and it’s all Sam can do not to pull him into his arms right then and there.

They don’t go back inside until several minutes after Jody’s car has disappeared into the distance. “Come on,” Charlie says finally, ushering the two of them through the door and locking it behind them. Sam reluctantly pulls his hand away from Dean’s and lets Charlie herd him into the library. Once there, Charlie drops into a chair and lays her head down on the table, closing her eyes with a sigh. “Naptime?” she asks them without opening her eyes.

“Sounds good,” Sam agrees, grabbing Dean’s hand and pulling him out of the library before Charlie can say anything else.

They end up back in Dean’s room, sprawled across the slightly too-small mattress, their lips sealed together and their hands desperately seeking each other’s skin. Sam lets everything but Dean fade away as they pull their clothes off and wrap themselves in each other. Dean’s skin is warm against his, his mouth hot and demanding, and Sam pushes him down against the pillows and kisses him until they’re both breathless and shaking. “Can I?” Sam whispers, and Dean fumbles at the nightstand and presses the bottle of lube into his hand.

Sam takes his time with it, kissing every inch of Dean’s skin that he can reach as he slides his slicked fingers inside of him. Dean arches under him, swearing, his hands tangling in Sam’s hair and tugging. It’s slightly painful, but Sam welcomes it, welcomes every sensation Dean draws out of him, every scrape of his nails and brush of his skin. He’s beautiful like this, spread out underneath him, naked and pliant and utterly his. “Dean,” Sam says out loud, “ _Dean_ ,” because that’s all he wants right now, and for once it’s exactly what he has.

Dean’s tight when he pushes inside of him, and Sam takes his time with that too, stroking the tips of his fingers over Dean’s skin, until Dean suddenly shifts under him and lifts his hips, wrapping his legs around Sam’s waist. “Sam,” he chokes, his voice raw with need, and Sam grips him and slides in the rest of the way, panting at the heat of him. He bends forward, bowing until he can get his mouth back on Dean’s, until they’re joined together as fully as possible. 

He’s utterly lost after that, captivated by the taste and scent and feel of his brother. Dean’s fingers dig into his shoulders, holding him close as they rock together, as Sam learns this part of his brother as well. Sam strokes his own hands over Dean’s body, skimming them down his sides, trying to memorize every inch of him. He wants it to last forever, but it’s too much, Dean’s heat enveloping him, Dean’s sweaty skin slipping against his, Dean’s mouth fused with his. Sam comes without breaking the kiss, barely even breaking the rhythm they’re in. A moment later Dean comes; Sam can feel it, his body tensing and then releasing, the sudden flood of heat between them. Sam kisses him again and again, wanting to hold onto this for as long as possible, to keep this for as long he can.

There’s a knock at the door.

Sam freezes, pulling back from Dean enough to catch his wide-eyed look of shock. “Shit,” Dean whispers. The two of them break apart, hastily searching out their clothes while trying to clean off with the rumpled sheets

“Guys?” Charlie’s voice comes through the door just as Sam manages to locate his shirt and pull it back on. “Kevin’s on the phone!”

“Just a minute!” Dean yells back. They hastily yank the rest of their clothes back on, Sam making a face as he pulls his jeans up over his still-sensitive cock. He’s not even sure if they should really bother, at this point. Charlie’s a smart woman, and they’re not exactly being subtle here, even if they are dressed again. 

“Dean,” he starts, but Dean just leans over the mattress and runs a hand over Sam’s hair, smoothing it down. His face is just inches away, and Sam can’t stop himself from closing the distance and kissing him again, tracing the shape of his lips with the tip of his tongue. Dean exhales and kisses him back for one dizzying moment, then pulls away.

“Come in!” Dean yells.

The door opens, and Charlie peeks in, a tentative smile on her lips. “It’s Kevin,” she says, holding out her cell.

“You said,” Dean grunts, shifting away from Sam. Sam’s suddenly aware of just how messy the bed is, not to mention how mussed the two of them must look. If Charlie doesn’t figure it out, he thinks, feeling a flush creeping over his face, he’ll be shocked.

Charlie blinks, but then she steps into the room and says, “Go ahead, Kev, they’re here.”

“Hey, guys,” Kevin’s voice rings out, sounding remarkably good for coming from a cell speaker. It’s almost like he never left, like he’s just in another room. For a moment, Sam forgets his embarrassment in the sudden wave of relief that comes over him. Kevin’s still alive, still okay, and Linda’s all right too. Letting them go wasn’t a mistake.

They’ll be able to take that with them, in the end.

“Hey, Kevin,” Sam says. “How are you and your mom?”

“Still settling,” Kevin replies. “Look, I… Charlie told me about Cas, guys. I’m sorry.”

Sam glances at Dean, who’s staring down at his hands, his face carefully expressionless. “Thanks,” Sam says finally. 

“Thanks from us too,” Kevin says. “I know you guys were just trying to do your best, and… well, thanks for everything. Kind of.”

Dean stirs then, lifting his head. A ghost of a smile plays over his lips. “You too, short stack.”

Charlie cuffs him, grinning, just as Kevin says, “Hey, Charlie, hit him for me.” 

“Kevin!” they hear Linda’s voice scold in the background. “Don’t hit people, it’s rude. Unless they deserve it, of course.” There’s a scuffle and then Linda’s voice sounds in the room, clearer and happier than they’ve ever heard it. “Thank you from me as well, boys,” she says warmly. “Charlie told what you did. Thank you especially for introducing us to her.”

“I’m still gay, Linda,” Charlie says, affecting a sigh. She looks amused, though.

“She’s going to come out and help us get set up, you know,” Linda continues as if Charlie hadn’t spoken.

“We didn’t, actually,” Sam says, eyeing Charlie, who flushes and gives them a sheepish smile. ‘ _I’ll explain after_ ,’ she mouths.

“She’s going to get us new identities, make sure we’re as safe as possible,” Linda says. “She’s a smart girl, that Charlie.”

“I can hear you, you know,” Charlie laughs, a blush creeping across her cheeks.

“Good.”

“She’ll do a great job,” Dean says, gruff, and Charlie glows.

They talk for a few more minutes after that, but Sam doesn’t really pay attention to the words. He just watches Dean and Charlie, taking them both in. Charlie’s arm is still scarred where Gadreel healed it, and though she’s got a bruise over one eyebrow from her clash with Abaddon, she looks great, he thinks. Her long red hair is clipped back from her face, and she’s animated as she talks, her lips curving in smiles and her eyes dancing. 

She’ll be fine without them.

And Dean. The longer they talk, the more relaxed Dean seems to get, though Sam knows him well enough to see the strain in him too. At least, Sam thinks, aching to reach out for Dean, they’ll be going together. They won’t have to leave each other, and they’ll know that everyone they’re leaving behind has a chance to be all right. It isn’t much, but it’s something. 

It’s more than they’ve had in a long time.

“So,” Dean says after they’ve said goodbye and Charlie’s ended the call, “when were you planning to tell us you were leaving?”

Charlie tucks the phone in her pocket, a light blush still coloring her cheeks. “Right now, actually.” She kneels down on the bed between them, throwing one arm over Sam’s shoulder and the other over Dean’s. “I’ll come back,” she says, hugging them both fiercely. “I promise I will. Three angel blades, three of us, right? But I need to get out of this place for a little while. I need to breathe, you know?” She lets go of them and gets back to her feet, swiping under her eyes. “Besides,” she adds, raising her eyebrows and catching Sam’s eye, “I think you guys could use a little time alone.” 

“Why?” Dean asks, frowning, but Sam has a sinking suspicion that he knows exactly what she means. He had been expecting this, he reminds himself, even as he has to resist the urge to crawl under Dean’s sheets and hide.

“Okay, let me just ask this,” Charlie says, rubbing her temples. “Are you two all, you know,” she crooks the fingers on both hands, “‘flowers in the attic’?”

“Flowers in the—” Dean begins.

“No!” Sam exclaims, losing the battle to hide his face in his hands. “No, we’re — we’re not—” But he can’t lie to her, not anymore. He drops his hands to his lap, feeling his cheeks flaming. It’s ridiculous, after everything, how embarrassed he is. “We’re not like that,” he says in a low voice, “because it’s. You know. Consensual.”

Charlie snorts. “Good point!” She tosses her hair back over her shoulders and laughs, and Sam finds himself laughing with her, the tension suddenly draining out of him. She’s not going to push them away. She — well, maybe she doesn’t understand, but she accepts.

He’s going to miss her so fucking much.

“What the hell is flowers in the attic?” Dean complains.

Sam takes a deep breath. “There’s this book series,” he says, not looking up from his hands. 

Dean’s face drains of color with every word Sam explains, and he sidles away from Charlie, glancing sidelong at her as his face flushes crimson. Even the tips of his ears go red as Sam explains exactly how the siblings in the books end up together. “Oh, god,” Charlie laughs, seeing that. “Please, Dean. Who am I to judge? I know what your life’s been like, and I know how you two are about each other. It’s cool, okay?” She claps a hand on both their shoulders. “Just keep it on the downlow when I’m actually around, yeah? Or if anyone else is. And maybe, like, air the room out before you let people in.” She winks.

Sam nods fervently.

Dean looks even more horrified. “Jody,” he says faintly, and Charlie shakes her head, still smiling.

“I think I’m the only who realized,” she assures him. “I thought maybe, when you dragged him away last night — but Jody was worrying about Alex, remember, she had that cut on her hand? So she didn’t really notice, and I wasn’t sure till I came in just now.” She ruffles Dean’s hair, eliciting a grunt and a smack from him. “I’ll miss you too,” she teases.

“So you’re really going?” Sam asks her. He suddenly doesn’t want her to leave, much as he wants to have some time with just the two of them. But the sooner she goes, the sooner it’ll be over for them for good.

Her face softens. “Yeah, I am,” she says. “But I’ll be back soon. Promise you’ll be here when I come, okay?”

Sam can’t help glancing at Dean, who meets his eyes. There’s sorrow there, the same pain clenching at Sam’s chest reflected in Dean’s eyes, but both of them know what they have to say.

“Promise,” they say together.

“We’re not keeping any of these promises,” Dean says an hour later, as they stand at the door and watch another car drive away from the bunker. His eyes are glassy, his face pale as he turns away and shuts the door behind him. “Are we?”

Sam holds Death’s ring up, watching as the white stone seems to absorb the light. “We have another promise to keep,” he says.

They stay in the library this time, sitting across from each other at the table that Charlie’d staked as hers for the last however many weeks it’s been. Sam places the ring on the wooden surface between them, staring down at it. They don’t have to do this right away, he thinks. He and Dean could steal a couple more hours together first, make love again, have the afterglow they’ve never managed to get, free from interruptions or other people or obligations. They could do it, he knows.

But it wouldn’t really be theirs. They’re not free, the two of them. They never have been.

“We don’t have to do it right now,” Dean says, echoing his thoughts.

“We don’t,” Sam agrees. He reaches across the table, catches Dean’s hands and laces their fingers together. “But it’s going to suck no matter when we do it, and even though I want more time with you—” He shudders in a breath, squeezing Dean’s hands. “I’m sick of this hanging over us.” 

Dean nods slowly, his eyes bright. “I love you,” he says gruffly, and Sam startles out a laugh. Of all the things he’d thought Dean would say at this moment, that actually hadn’t been on the list. “Shut up,” Dean says, laughing himself, even as his tears spill over. “I fucking mean it, you ass.”

“I know you do,” Sam laughs, his breath hitching in his throat. “I love you too. Jerk.”

Dean half-rises out of his chair to press his lips against Sam’s, warm and sweet. “Bitch,” he whispers against Sam’s mouth, freeing one hand to cup Sam’s cheek with his palm. Sam kisses him back, closing his eyes, giving them both this one last moment.

“So how do you think we should do it?” Dean asks after they’ve broken apart again. All trace of laughter is gone from his voice; all Sam can hear now is the exhaustion of years weighing him down.

“I kind of want to try for sexual exhaustion,” Sam tries to joke. Dean smiles, but it’s clearly an effort, and Sam wishes — but he can’t, not now. There’s no point. “No matter what we do, it’s going to suck,” he says instead. “For whoever finds us, I mean.” Charlie, he doesn’t say, but he knows they’re both thinking it. 

“So guns then?” Dean offers. “Quickest way.”

Sam shakes his head. “I think,” he says, and his hands are shaking, actually shaking as he reaches into his pocket to draw out the object he’d stashed there earlier. “I think we should bleed out.” He shows the knife to Dean. It’s his old curved blade, the one he’s had since he was a kid, the same one Alex gave back to him last night. “We’ve done it before, and it won’t…” He swallows hard, then says, “It won’t ruin our faces. For… for her.”

“Depends on how long before she comes back,” Dean mutters, his voice scratching over every word. 

Sam grips the handle of the blade and wills his hands to stop shaking. “Should we,” he tries to ask, but his voice breaks.

Dean takes the knife from him, his fingers cold as they brush Sam’s palm. “Hold out your wrist,” he commands, his voice gravelly, and Sam does it, extending both hands toward his brother, the insides of his wrists pointed upward. His eyes lock with Dean’s, and he stares at him, tracing his eyes over every familiar, beloved feature.

Then he closes his eyes and waits.

Instead he hears the clatter of the knife striking the table, and opens his eyes to find Dean clutching at his temples, breathing so hard and fast that Sam half-expects him to keel over. “I can’t do it,” he chokes. “I can kill myself, but Sammy, I can’t kill you again, I can’t—”

“You don’t have to, my dear boy,” Death purrs. 

Dean jerks back, nearly toppling over as the chair tips backward. Sam’s on his feet and around the table before he’s even really thought about it, putting himself between his brother and Death. “Sammy,” Dean gasps behind him. There’s no point, Sam knows. Death will take them both, no matter what Sam does. But he doesn’t move.

Death stands before him, tall and sepulchral, his thin lips twitching in something like amusement. “Winchesters,” he says, inspecting the nails on one hand. “I could sense you two angsting from across distances you can’t even imagine. It’s really quite something, you know. Almost admirable, if it weren’t so irritating.”

“Here,” Sam says shortly, grabbing the ring from the table and tossing it in Death’s direction. Death raises one spidery hand and seemingly plucks it from the air. “We’ve kept our promise.”

“So you have,” Death muses, slipping the ring down over one bony knuckle. “I had thought you might choose to keep this, as it’s one of the ways back into Heaven for all the angels who still remain on Earth.”

“One of?” Dean repeats. He’s standing at Sam’s side now, his shoulder pressed into Sam’s, his fingers gripping Sam’s with surprising force. 

“Heaven has no God in residence, as you know,” Death replies, slowly folding his fingers into a fist until the ring stands out, its stone now flashing in the light. “And so Heaven is no longer closed, to angels or to the souls trapped on this earth. The angels can return whenever they like, I made sure of that. I may have no love for them, but,” he taps his cane against the floor, eliciting a sharp rap, “I mislike taking angels. So much mess.”

“So they can get back in now,” Dean says, something like relief in his voice. Sam remembers Cas then, his face as he’d told them that Hannah would be the one to lead the angels now, and he squeezes Dean’s hand. She’ll be able to do it now, be able to fulfill both Castiel and Gadreel’s last wish.

“So it’s over,” Sam says. “We freed you, you took out Abaddon. The deal’s done.”

“If you like,” Death replies. “I do recall promising you two that the next time we met…” He lets his words trail off. His eyes fix on them, their intensity seeming to pierce straight through Sam’s chest, and he has a flash again of that cabin in the dream woods, of Death’s hand extending toward him. He remembers his only regret, that he wouldn’t be able to see Dean before he went.

Dean’s grip on Sam’s hand tightens, so much that it hurts, but Sam welcomes the pain. It’s the last thing he’s going to feel. 

This time, when he takes Death’s hand, he won’t be alone. 

“Can you make me the same promise?” he asks, abrupt. “Can you promise that we won’t be able to be resurrected?” Next to him, Dean nods, his fingers tightening on Sam’s.

Death nods as well. “What I told you before still stands, Sam. When you die, when both of you die, it will be the final time. No one will be able to deal it away.”

Sam nods. “Good,” he murmurs.

It’s over, then.

Time seems to slow to a stop as Sam waits, his eyes fixed on Death’s, his hand clasping Dean’s. Any second now, he thinks, his breathing coming in short staccato bursts. He thinks of Charlie, her red hair swinging as she makes them promise to be there when she comes back, of Jody hugging them and asking them to come visit her, and of Kevin and Linda, who thanked them for ruining their lives. And he realizes that, unlike the last time he met Death, he does have regrets.

“What are you waiting for?” Dean demands, his voice harsh with fear but utterly steady. Dean’s always been stronger when he has to be for him, Sam thinks, clutching at his brother’s hand. 

Death regards them for a long moment, one hand idly twisting the ring around his finger. “There is another option,” he says finally.

Sam starts. “Another…”

“In return for my ring, and of course for taking care of that upstart,” Death pronounces, every word carefully enunciated, “I offer you this. If you so choose, I will not take you until the next time you get yourselves killed.” Dean starts to say something, but Death holds up one bony finger, and Dean shuts his mouth. “That,” Death continues, glowering at him, “was not my offer. That was merely a statement. My offer is this: that when one of you finally manages to die, you will not go alone. If one of you dies, the other does as well. You will be, shall we say, a package deal.” 

Sam stares at him, too shocked to breathe.

“You can choose to go now, of course,” Death continues, waving the hand with the ring. “I will take you if you desire it. But if you don’t…” He taps the cane against the floor again. “That is my offer, Sam and Dean Winchester. I offer you time.” 

Time.

“Sam,” Dean whispers, and Sam turns to look at him. Dean’s eyes are wide, still red, but something’s sparking in them, something Sam hasn’t seen in them for a long, long time. He remembers again all the promises they’ve made today that he didn’t think they’d get to keep, and all the demons and angels still out there, all the messes still needing to be cleaned up, all the people who still need to be kept safe. He also remembers this morning, waking up in Dean’s arms, and being wrapped up in him earlier, wanting nothing more than just a few more hours with him. He remembers wanting to make up for all the time they’d lost, and thinking that they’d never have the chance. Winchesters don’t get second chances.

Except maybe, this time, they do.

“Your decision?” Death’s voice breaks in.

Dean squeezes his hand again and gives him the tiniest of nods. Sam turns to Death, squares his shoulders, and answers for both of them. 

"We've got work to do."


	12. EPILOGUE

  
**EPILOGUE  
** ...and the righteous side of Hell  
  
_I can feel if I feel the need_  


They’re on their way to the Impala, hands tangled together, shoulders brushing as they walk. Everything around them looks a little brighter, the air feels warmer, and Dean feels the overwhelming urge to peel his shirts down until the sun is kissing his skin. Sam’s hand is warm against his, and although Dean’s mind is racing with new possibilities, and he knows Sam’s has to be as well, the both of them are silent.

But when they come back upon the Impala, there’s a stranger leaning against her, his back to them, looking off into the distance like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Dean and Sam drop their hands in unison, Dean going for his Taurus, Sam for his Beretta. The man turns as he hears them approach, flashing a familiar smile set in a familiar face.

“Hello, boys,” Crowley says with a casual smile. “Nice work with Abaddon. Not the tack that I would have taken, but you did just fine without me, so I’m not complaining.”

“I cured you,” Sam tells him, voice thin and tight. “The gates of Hell are closed, so that means it worked. Right?”

Crowley doesn’t reply; he smiles and walks off, whistling what Dean thinks is supposed to be _Sympathy for the Devil_.

“Figures,” he says, putting the Taurus away. “Even now that it’s over, it’s never fucking over.”

“Least it’s the devil we know?” Sam jokes. And it’s weak, but Dean laughs at it anyway. They’ll deal with Crowley if and when he becomes an issue in the future, but as for right now, all Dean wants to do is get behind the wheel, Sammy riding shotgun, and hit the road.

[ ](http://merakieross.livejournal.com/4566.html)

The end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Links** :  
> [Merakieros's Art Post](http://merakieross.livejournal.com/4566.html)  
> [LiveJournal Master Post](http://teashopmuses.livejournal.com/93237.html)
> 
>  
> 
>  **Song credits** :  
> "[Absolute Zero](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJuEjAo4ues)" is a song by Stone Sour from the album _The House of Gold & Bones - Part 1_. All the lyrics quoted at the beginnings of each chapter are from the song itself, and we took the title of the album for part one as well. :)
> 
> "[For Whom the Bell Tolls](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TStMsQhwceI)" is originally a quotation from poet John Donne (later used by Ernest Hemingway as a book title), but relevant to SPN, it's a song by Metallica from the album _Ride the Lightning_. 
> 
> "[If You Want Blood You've Got It](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EWqTym2cQU)" is both the name of the first live album and a song by AC/DC from the album _Highway to Hell_.
> 
> And last, _The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell_ is the name of two albums (Volumes 1  & 2) by Five Finger Death Punch. "[The Wrong Side of Heaven](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_l4Ab5FRwM)" is also one of the tracks from Volume 1. We almost named the story after it instead. ^^;


End file.
